Great Throughts Treasury

"In this world truth can wait; she is used to it."

"It is a beautiful necessity of our nature to love something."

"It is wonderful how near conceit is to insanity!"

"Jewels! It's my belief that when woman was made, jewels were invented only to make her the more mischievous."

"It takes all sorts of people to make a world."

"It is amazing at how small a price may the wedding ring be placed upon a worthless hand; but, by the beauty of our law, what heaps of gold are indispensable to take it off!"

"Love the sea? I dote upon it--from the beach."

"Keep your eyes and ears open, if you desire to get on in the world."

"Love's like the flies, and, drawing-room or garret, goes all over a house."

"Love's like the measles--all the worse when it comes late in life."

"Luck, mere luck may make even madness wisdom."

"Malice blunts the point of wit."

"Marriage is like wine. It is not be properly judged until the second glass."

"Many a man who now lacks shoe-leather would wear golden spurs if knighthood were the reward of worth."

"Man owes two solemn debts--one to society, and one to-nature. It is only when he pays the second that he covers the first."

"O friendship! thou divinest alchemist, that man should ever profane thee!"

"O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death."

"O, glorious laughter! thou man-loving spirit, that for a time doth take the burden from the weary back, that doth lay salve to the weary feet, bruised and cut by flints and shards."

"Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It is as true as sunbeams."

"Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it."

"My notion of a wife at forty is that a man should be able to change her, like a banknote, for two twenties."

"Not peace at any price! Chains are worse than bayonets."

"Never have a friend that's poorer than yourself."

"Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point."

"Nature designed us to be of good cheer."

"Patience is the strongest of strong drinks; for it kills the giant despair."

"Rogues are prone to find things before they are lost."

"Some people's hearts are shrunk in them, like dried nuts. You can hear 'em rattle as they walk."

"Some of 'em [virtues] like extinct volcanoes,"

"Reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others."

"Quality, not quantity, is my measure."

"Some persons can never relish the full moon, out of respect for that venerable institution, the old one."

"Soldiers looked at as they ought to be. They are to the world as poppies to corn-fields."

"Self-defense is the clearest of all laws; and for this reason - the lawyers didn't make it."

"Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true; but there is the slime."

"Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps."

"That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment."

"The best thing I know between France and England is the sea."

"That questionable superfluity—small beer."

"The blackest of fluid is used as an agent to enlighten the world."

"The law is a pretty bird, and has charming wings. It would be quite a bird of paradise if it did not carry such a terrible bill."

"The character that needs law to mend it, is hardly worth the tinkering."

"The only athletic sport I ever mastered was backgammon."

"The life of the husbandman, - a life fed by the bounty of earth and sweetened by the airs of heaven."

"The language of women should be luminous, but not voluminous."

"The sharp employ the sharp; verily, a man may be known by his attorney."

"The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling."

"The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment."

"The worst of it is, dullness is catching."

"There are some people as obtuse in recognizing an argument as they are in appreciating wit. You couldn't drive it into their heads with a hammer."