Most painters have painted themselves. So have most poets: not so palpably indeed, but more assiduously. Some have done nothing else.

The difference between those whom the world esteems as good and those whom it condemns as bad, is in many cases little else than that the former have been better sheltered from temptation.

In science its main worth is temporary, as a stepping-stone to something beyond. Even [Newton's] Principia ... is truly but the beginning of a natural philosophy. Co-author with his brother Julius Hare.

Practical life teaches us that people may differ and that both may be wrong: it also teaches us that people may differ and both be right. Anchor yourself fast in the latter faith, or the former will sweep your heart away.

In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression.

It is well for us that we are born babies in intellect. Could we understand half what mothers say and do to their infants, we should be filled with a conceit of our own importance, which would render us insupportable through life. Happy the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it.

A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.