Augustus William Hare Quotes
They who boast of their tolerance merely give others leave to be as careless about religion as they are themselves. A walrus might as well pride itself on its endurance of cold.
Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself. You might as well have said: nobody.
Excessive indulgence to others, especially to children is in fact only self-indulgence under an alias.
How deeply rooted must unbelief be in our hearts when we are surprised to find our prayers answered.
Life may be defined to be the power of self-augmentation or assimilation, not of self-nurture; for then a steam-engine over a coal-pit might be made to live.
Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof.
Science sees signs; Poetry, the thing signified. Co-author with his brother Julius Hare.
Many a man's vices have at first been nothing worse than good qualities run wild.
Nobody who is afraid of laughing, and heartily too, at his friend, can be said to have a true and thorough love for him.
Histories used often to be stories: the fashion now is to leave out the story. Our histories are stall-fed: the facts are absorbed by the reflexions, as the meat is sometimes by the fat.
What do our clergy lose by reading their sermons? They lose preaching, the preaching of the voice in many cases, the preaching of the eye almost always.
When a man says he sees nothing in a book, he very often means that he does not see himself in it: which, if it is not a comedy or a satire, is likely enough.
When a watch goes ill, it is not enough to move the hands; you must set the regulator. When a man does ill, it is not enough to alter his handiwork, you must regulate his heart.
How few are our real wants! and how easy is it to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable.
Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.
Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.
