Skip to content

The unfortunate Ladurlad did not desire the sleep that for ever fled his weary eyelids with more earnestness than most people seek the deep slumber of a decided opinion.

— Arthur Helps Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

The concluding phrase of this aphorism is quoted by John Stuart Mill in the second chapter of On Liberty: "A contemporary author has well spoken of 'the deep slumber of a decided opinion.'"

Topics

Mind

More quotes by Arthur Helps

Do not mistake energy for enthusiasm; the softest speakers are often the most enthusiastic of men.

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835)

There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835)

Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child’s clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friendships.

The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as the leader.

Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835)

The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice. The rich are always advising the poor; but the poor seldom return the compliment.

Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms (1871)

All Arthur Helps quotes →

You may also like

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Helps (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.