Great Throughts Treasury

"Our world is a college, events are teachers, happiness is the graduating point, character is the diploma God gives man."

"Abiding happiness is not simply a possibility, but a duty all may live above the troubles of life worry is a poison and happiness is a medicine."

"Failure is blindness to the strategic element in events; success is readiness for instant action when the opportune moment arrives. "

"The years are going. Let the chaff and the evil part of this life pass with them. As men load the wagon with the sweepings of the street, and, carrying it far to the ocean, cast it into the deep abyss, so bring together all your hatreds, weaknesses, unkindnesses, jealousies, all passions, ingratitudes, and embittering memories, and tying them into one bundle, let the old year sweep them out and drop them into the gulf of oblivion. Expel from your life all sins and sordid aims. Carry into the new year only the choicest thoughts and aspirations. As in the olden days when men approached the Parthenon they cleansed their persons and arrayed themselves in white robes before entering that glorious temple, so cleanse your garments from transgression, clothe yourself with aspirations. Farewell to the past! Welcome and all hail to the future."

"Well hath he been called one of the architects of civilization."

"Self-reliance can turn a salesman into a merchant; a politician into a statesman; an attorney into a jurist; an unknown youth into a great leader. All are to be tomorrow's big leaders - those who in solitude sit above the clang and dust of time, with the world's secret trembling on their lips."