The voices / 12 fragments

Robert Hall

1764 AD — 1831 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗nature knowledge mind wisdom time faith life friendship

Historical source references

Apology for the Freedom of the Press
Gregory's Life of Hall
Guilt · anthology attribution: Robert Hall
Merit · anthology attribution: Robert Hall
Talent · anthology attribution: Robert Hall
Thought · anthology attribution: Robert Hall
Page 74 · printed citation: Robert Hall · subject: Enthusiasm

Archive entries

01c. 1797 AD

His [Burke's] imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.

Robert Hall / quote

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02c. 1797 AD

He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.

Robert Hall / quote

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03c. 1797 AD

Call things by their right names. . . . Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

Robert Hall / quote

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04Undated

Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future,—these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.

Robert Hall / quote

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05Undated

Distinguished merit will ever rise to oppression, and will draw lustre from reproach. The vapors which gather round the rising sun, and follow him in his course, seldom fail at the close of it to form a magnificent theatre for his reception, and to invest with variegated tints and with a softened effulgence the luminary which they cannot hide.

Robert Hall / quote

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06Undated

Talent of the highest order, and such as is calculated to command admiration, may exist apart from wisdom.

Robert Hall / quote

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07Undated

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best, in matters of prudence last thoughts are best.

Robert Hall / quote

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08Undated

Enthusiasm is an evil much less to be dreaded than superstition. Superstition is the disease of nations; enthusiasm, that of individuals: the former grows inveterate by time, the latter is cured by it.

Robert Hall / quote

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09Undated

The prayer of faith is the only power in the universe to which the great Jehovah yields.

Robert Hall / quote

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10Undated

Prayer serves as an edge and border to preserve the web of life from unraveling.

Robert Hall / quote

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11Undated

A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.

Robert Hall / quote

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12Undated

We are to seek wisdom and understanding only in the length of days.

Robert Hall / quote

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Robert Hall

Archive entries

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Meditations

The Republic

Tao Te Ching