Great Throughts Treasury

"Do you know what the teacher is doing? He is manufacturing minds. He is the wheelwright, the weaver, the blacksmith of that work in which he is God's helper — the future."

"Do you think that Dante has fewer things to say than Machiavelli? Is the underworld of civilization, because it is deeper and gloomier, less important than the upper? Do we really know the mountain when we do not know the cavern?"

"Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men."

"Dost thou understand? I love thee! he cried again. What love! said the unhappy girl with a shudder. He resumed,--The love of a damned soul."

"Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the souls of men."

"During a wise man's whole life, his destiny holds his philosophy in a state of siege."

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."

"Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in all things write the word finis in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent, draw the bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break the strings with our own hand."

"Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job."

"Emotion is always new."

"England has two books, one which she has made and one which has made her: Shakespeare and the Bible."

"Equality has an organ; free and compulsory education... From identical schools spring an equal society."

"Errors are excellent projectiles ... Factions are blind men who aim straight."

"Eternity is more subservient to man than man imagines."

"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise."

"Every blade has two edges; he who wounds with one wounds himself with the other."

"Every calling has its aspirants who cling to the skirts of authority; no power is without its votaries, no fortune without its court. Those with an eye to the future flutter round the illustrious present."

"Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious"

"Every idea needs a visible envelope, every principle needs a habitation, every dogma needs a temple. A church is God between four walls."

"Every intellectual effort, be it drama, poem, or romance, must contain three ingredients — what the author has felt, what he has observed, and what he has divined."

"Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: For heaven’s sake why don't you come in? With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are men who have a similar tendency to remain undecided between two solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate abruptly closing the opportunity. The over-prudent, cats as they are, and because they are cats, sometimes run more danger than the bold."

"Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left."

"Everything bows to success, even grammar."

"Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it."

"Exhaustion of strength does not exhaust the will. Faith is only a secondary power, to will is the first. The proverbial mountains which faith moves are nothing beside that which the will accomplishes."

"Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats."

"Fashions have done more harm than revolutions."

"First problem: Produce wealth. Second problem: To distribute it...England solves the first of these two problems. She creates wealth admirably; she distributes it badly...Communism and Agrarian law think they have solved the second problem. They are mistaken. Their distribution kills production. Equal partition abolishes emulation. And consequently labor. It is a distribution made by the butcher, who kills what he divides...The two problems must be solved together to be well solved."

"Foppery is the egotism of clothes."

"For dogs we kings should have lions, and for cats, tigers. The great benefits a crown."

"For each of us, there are certain parallelisms between our intellect, our habits, and our character, which develop without interruption and are broken only by life's great upheavals."

"For four hundred years the human race has not made a step but what has left its plain vestige behind. We enter now upon great centuries. The sixteenth century will be known as the age of painters, the seventeenth will be termed the age of writers, the eighteenth the age of philosophers, the nineteenth the age of apostles and prophets. To satisfy the nineteenth century, it is necessary to be the painter of the sixteenth, the writer of the seventeenth, the philosopher of the eighteenth; and it is also necessary, like Louis Blane, to have the innate and holy love of humanity which constitutes an apostolate, and opens up a prophetic vista into the future. In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that hope the whole heaven."

"For he knew how to do a little of everything--all badly."

"For love is like a tree that grows naturally, has its roots deep in doing walking in our whole being and continues to anticipate that even if the heart is shattered."

"For our own part, we respect certain things belonging to the past and forgive all of it, provided it consents to stay dead. But it if tries to come alive we attack and seek to kill it."

"For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."

"For sight is woman-like and shuns the old. (Ah! he can see enough, when years are told, Who backwards looks.)"

"For words are the Word, and the Word is God."

"For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind, Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind."

"Forces are infinite machines, machines are limited forces."

"Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive."

"Friend is sometimes a word devoid of meaning; enemy, never."

"Friendship exists outside our modern economy of scarcity... It's not about apportioning vanishing resources of time and energy. Friendship is a blessed relic of the ancient economy of the gift, and the time freely given to people dear to you actually creates magical abundance."

"From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us."

"From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought."

"Genius invites hostility."

"Genius is a headland jutting out into the infinite."

"Genius is a promontory jutting out into the future"

"Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available."

"Genius: the superhuman in man."