Christmas Every Day

The best piece of advice I ever received was from my mother: “If you want to be happily married, marry a happy person.” I am glad to say I took her at her word.

— Julian Fellowes

Passed on to me by the playwright John Mortimer, who received it in turn from his father: “All advice is useless.”

— Richard Madeley

My mother always said: “It is never your extravagances you regret, it is only your economies.”

— Fern Britton

We shall spend the month of March dispensing tidbits of advice from the great and the near-great. First up is Lady Antonia Fraser:

A very old Marquess once said to me: “No gentleman is ever rude by mistake.” This seems to me a profound observation about the need for courtesy and consideration to all people at all times. Unless, of course, you have good reason for anger, in which case go for it.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects. 

— Attributed to Herodotus but falsely put on his lips by Mark Twain

“Some historians hold that history is just one damned thing after another.” 

— Arnold Toynbee

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.”

— Edward Gibbon

It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events …. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.

— Winston Churchill

Militarism has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdown of civilizations. The single art of war makes progress at the expense of all the arts of peace.

— Arnold Toynbee

The warm desires, the long expectations of youth, are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world: they are generally damped by time and experience, by disappointment or possession; and after the middle season the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain: while the few who have climbed the summit aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writings.

— Edward Gibbon