Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Sam Walter Foss

American Librarian and Poet

"Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by; They are good, they are bad; they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish,--so am I; Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend to man."

"There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the place of their self-content; There are souls like stars that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament; There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths Where highways never ran,-- But let me live by the side of the road, And be a friend to man."

"W'en you see a man in woe, Walk right up and say "hullo." Say "hullo" and "how d'ye do," "How's the world a-usin' you?" . . . W'en you travel through the strange Country t'other side the range, Then the souls you've cheered will know Who you be, an' say "hullo.""

""Oh, ship ahoy!" rang out the cry; "Oh, give us water or we die!" A voice came o'er the waters far, "Just drop your bucket where you are." And then they dipped and drank their fill Of water fresh from mead and hill; And then they knew they sailed upon The broad mouth of the Amazon."

"A hundred thousand men were led By one calf near three centuries dead; They followed still his crooked way And lost a hundred years a day; For thus such reverence is lent To well established precedent."

"The woods were made for the hunter of dreams, The brooks for the fishers of song; To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game The streams and the woods belong. There are thoughts that moan from the soul of pine And thoughts in a flower bell curled; And thoughts that are blown with scent of the fern Are as new and as old as the world."

"Seek not for fresher founts afar, Just drop your bucket where you are; And while the ship right onward leaps, Uplift it from the exhaustless deeps. Parch not your life with dry despair; The stream of hope flow everywhere-- So under every sky and star, Just drop your bucket where you are."

"I say the very things that make the greatest Stir an' the most interestin' things, are things that didn't occur."

"Seek not for fresher founts afar, just drop you bucket where you are."

"Strew gladness on the paths of men—You will not pass this way again."

"The path that leads to a loaf of bread, Winds through the swamps of toil; And the path that leads to a suit of clothes, Goes through a flowerless soil, and the paths that lead to the loaf of bread, And the suit of clothes are hard to tread."

"The woods were made for the hunter of dreams, the brooks for the fishes of song."

"There are purple grapes in the Land of Git-Thare."

"He had a startling genius, but somehow it did n't emerge; Always on the evolution of things that would n't evolve; Always verging toward some climax, but he never reached the verge; Always nearing the solution of some theme he could not solve."

"Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains."

"A hundred thousand men were led by one calf near three centuries dead; They followed still his crooked way and lost a hundred years a day; For thus such reverence is lent to well-established precedent."

"For men are prone to go it blind along the calf-paths of the mind"

"To do what other men have done. They follow in the beaten track, and out and in, and forth and back, and still their devious course pursue, to keep the path that others do."

"We felt the universe wuz safe, an' God wuz on his throne."