Leslie Stephen Quotes

Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is doing a public service.

The division between faith and reason is a half-measure, till it is frankly admitted that faith has to do with fiction, and reason with fact.

He who sees only what is before his eyes sees the worst part of every view.

The only way in which one human being can properly attempt to influence another is by encouraging him to think for himself, instead of endeavoring to instill ready-made opinions into his head.

The poet should touch our heart by showing his own

Walking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season.

Chance is a name for our ignorance.

I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man, and that it is wrong to leave any district without setting foot on its highest peak.

The truth cannot be asserted without denouncing the falsehood.

If you wish at once to do nothing and be respectable nowadays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study.

Poe is a kind of Hawthorne and delirium tremens.

Genius is a capacity for taking trouble.

A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience.

When I ceased to accept the teaching of my youth, it was not so much a process of giving up beliefs, as of discovering that I had never really believed.

The wilderness provides an environment for a child's inner life to develop because it requires him to be constantly aware of his surroundings.

The English literary movement at the end of the 18th century was obviously due in great part, if not mainly, to the renewed practice of walking.

No good story is quite true.