Tom Brown's School Days
1857
Tom Brown's School Days
1857
Tom Brown's School Days is a novel by Thomas Hughes, first published in 1857, set in the 1830s at Rugby School, an English public school. The story follows young Tom Brown as he navigates the challenges of school life, including bullying, camaraderie, and moral development, drawing heavily from Hughes' own experiences at Rugby. Notable for its influence on the British school novel genre, the book features real-life figures like Dr. Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and has inspired numerous adaptations and sequels, including Tom Brown at Oxford published in 1861.
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“He who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world;””
— Thomas Hughes
“I want to leave behind me the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy, or turned his back on a big one.””
— Thomas Hughes
“...so bear in mind that majorities, especially respectable ones, are nine times out of ten in the wrong; and that if you see man or boy striving earnestly on the weak side, however wrong-headed or blundering he may be, you are not to go and join the cry against him. If you can't join him and help him, and make him wiser, at any rate remember that he has found something in the world which he will fight and suffer for....””
— Thomas Hughes
“However, you'll all find, if you haven't found it out already, that a time comes in every human friendship when you must go down into the depths of yourself, and lay bare what is there to your friend, and wait in fear for his answer.””
— Thomas Hughes
“Don't be in a hurry about finding your work in the world for yourself”
— Thomas Hughes
“Remember this, I beseech you, all you boys who are getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives, probably, when you may have more wide influence for good or evil on the society you live in than you ever can have again.””
— Thomas Hughes
“A character for steadiness once gone is not easily recovered””
— Thomas Hughes
“Don't be led away to think this part of the world important and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner.””
— Thomas Hughes
“Life isn't all beer and skittles; but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education.””
— Thomas Hughes
