A perfect life is like that of a ship of war which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone in the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong to society, to have our place in it, and yet be capable of a complete individual existence outside of it.
Philip Gilbert HamertonThe art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them in our modern culture without going over the ground again.
Philip Gilbert HamertonThe one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.
Philip Gilbert HamertonOf all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science or literature or art. It is, by these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age.
Philip Gilbert HamertonHave you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted, than when we read it in the original author?
Philip Gilbert HamertonA perfect life is like that of a ship of war which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone in the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong to society, to have our place in it, and yet be capable of a complete individual existence outside of it.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton