John Lubbock Quotes

Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.

A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.

Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

In this world we do not see things as they are. We see them as we are, because what we see depends mainly on what we are looking for.

A Cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

However vexed you may be overnight, things will often look very different in the morning.

Don't be afraid of showing affection. Be warm and tender, thoughtful and affectionate. Men are more helped by sympathy than by service. Love is more than money, and a kind word will give more pleasure than a present.

Great battles are really won before they are actually fought. To control our passions we must govern our habits, and keep watch over ourselves in the small details of everyday life.

The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it.

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should have the opportunity of teaching itself. What does it matter if the pupil know a little more or a little less? A boy who leaves school knowing much, but hating his lessons, will soon have forgotten all he ever learned; while another who had acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if he had learned little, would soon teach himself more than the first ever knew.

Endurance is a much better test of character than any single act of heroism, however noble.

Fresh air is as good for the mind as for the body. Nature always seems trying to talk to us as if she had some great secret to tell. And so she has.

Love seems to beautify and inspire all nature. It raises the earthly caterpillar into the ethereal butterfly, it paints the feathers in spring, it lights the glowworm's lamp, it wakens the song of birds, and inspires the poet's lay. Even inanimate Nature seems to feel the spell, and flowers glow with the richest colours.

A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. C. S. LEWIS, Out of the Silent Planet True pleasures are paid for in advance; false pleasures afterwards, with heavy and compound interest.

We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.

Many a blessing has been recognized too late.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee.

Before buying anything, it is well to ask if one could do without it.

Though it is a great mistake to make friends of the wicked and foolish, it is unwise to make enemies of them, for they are very numerous.

Try to realize all the blessings you have, and you will find perhaps that they are more than you suppose.

Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.

All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things of this world-not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.

How little our libraries cost us as compared with our liquor cellars.

Happy indeed is the naturalist: to him the seasons come round like old friends; to him the birds sing: as he walks along, the flowers stretch out from the hedges, or look up from the ground, and as each year fades away, he looks back on a fresh store of happy memories.

Time is a trust, and for every minute of it you will have to account.

It always seems to be raining harder than it really is when you look at the weather through the window.

Our great mistake in education is ... the worship of book-learning-the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. ... We ought to follow exactly the opposite course with children-to give them a wholesome variety of mental food, and endeavour to cultivate their tastes, rather than to fill their minds with dry facts.

We often hear of bad weather, but in reality no weather is bad. It is all delightful, though in different ways. Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating.

To render ourselves insensible to pain we must forfeit also the possibilities of happiness.

Be cautious, but not too cautious; do not be too much afraid of making a mistake; a man who never makes a mistake will make nothing.

Happiness is a condition of mind not a result of circumstances.

Art trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.

A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.

Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.

If you have the least doubt about it, do not marry.

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.

Savages have often been likened to children, and the comparison is not only correct but also highly instructive. Many naturalists consider that the early condition of the individual indicates that of the race,-that the best test of the affinities of a species are the stages through which it passes. So also it is in the case of man; the life of each individual is an epitome of the history of the race, and the gradual development of the child illustrates that of the species.

Reading and writing, arithmetic and grammar do not constitute education, any more than a knife, fork and spoon constitute a dinner.

A man who is not a good friend to himself cannot be so to any one else.

Rest is by no means a waste of time.

To be happy ourselves is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others.

Everyone must have felt that a cheerful friend is like a sunny day, which sheds its brightness on all around; and most of us can, as we choose, make of this world either a palace or a prison.

A kind word will give more pleasure than a present.

It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong.

The world would be better and brighter if people were taught the duty of being happy as well as the happiness of doing their duty.