Great Throughts Treasury

"The man without imagination has no wings, he cannot fly." -

"It is in periods of apparent disaster, during the sufferings of whole generations, that the greatest improvement in human character has been effected." - Archibald Alison

"The best principles, if pushed to excess, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; and the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression." - Archibald Alison

"There is no unmixed good in human affairs; the best principles, if pushed to excess, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression. It is the same in the political world; the tranquillity of despotism resembles the stagnation of the Dead Sea; the fever of innovation the tempests of the ocean It would seem as if, at particular periods, from causes inscrutable to human wisdom, a universal frenzy seizes mankind; reason, experience, prudence, are alike blinded; and the very classes who are to perish in the storm are the first to raise its fury." - Archibald Alison

"A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces as by his gross sins." - Joseph Alleine

"There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart." - Richard Alleine

"Romance cannot be put into quantity production - the moment love becomes casual, it becomes commonplace." - Eric Lewis, aka ELEW

"Our religious art is advertising. Our sainthood is fame." -

"Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind." -

"Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it, and hate in silence." -

"Make no man your idol; for the best man must have faults, and his faults will usually become yours in addition to your own. This is as true in art as in morals." -

"Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect." -

"No man knows himself as an original." -

"Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down." -

"The love of gain never made a painter; but it has marred many." -

"The most intangible, and therefore the worst, kind of lie is a half truth. This is the peculiar device of a “conscientious” detractor." -

"The best and noblest lives are those which are set toward high ideals." -

"Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has." - Alphonse Kann

"A person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic." - Lisa Alther

"There is no shame in having fallen. Nor any shame in being born into a lowly estate. There is only shame in not struggling to rise. And also shame for not wishing to attain the better. Or not dreaming about it and praying for it." - Samuel Amalu

"Better is bread with a happy heart than riches with vexation." - Amen-em-apt NULL

"Another good thing in the heart of God is to pause before speaking." - Amen-em-apt NULL

"Better is the praise and love of men than riches in the storehouse." - Amen-em-apt NULL

"Liberty is always unfinished business." - American Civil Liberties Union NULL

"Religion tends to speak the language of the heart, which is the language of friends, lovers, children, and parents." -

"Every man is a tamer of wild beasts, and these wild beasts are his passions. To draw their teeth and claws, to muzzle and tame them, to turn them into servants and domestic animals, fuming, perhaps, but submissive - in this consists personal education." -

"He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature, and a continuous moral progress toward inward contentment and religious submission, is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life." -

"He who is silent is forgotten; he who abstains is taken at his word; he who does not advance falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed, distanced, crushed; he who ceases to grow greater becomes smaller; he who leaves off, gives up; the stationary condition is the beginning of the end." -

"He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous." -

"In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims; because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits." -

"It is dangerous to abandon one’s self to the luxury of grief; it deprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery." -

"It is dangerous to abandon one's self to the luxury of grief; it deprives one of courage, and even the wish for recovery." -

"It is not what he has, or even what he does which expresses the worth of a man, but what he is." -

"Knowledge, love, power - there is the complete life." -

"Moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes." -

"Never to tire, never to grow cold; to be patient, sympathetic, tender; to look for the budding flower and the opening heart; to hope always; like God, to love always - this is duty." -

"Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves towards fools." -

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you cannot accept regret." -

"The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man which it forms. If it injures the intelligence, it is bad; if it injures the character, it is vicious; if it injures the conscience it is criminal." -

"There are two sorts of pride: one in which we approve ourselves, the other in which we cannot accept ourselves." -

"To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits." -

"What is an intelligent man? A man who enters with ease and completeness into the spirit of things and the intention of persons, and who arrives at an end by the shortest route." -

"Without faith a man can do nothing. But faith can stifle all science." -

"There is nothing enduring in life for a woman except what she builds in a man's heart." - Judith Anderson, born Frances Margaret Anderson-Anderson, aka Dame Judith Anderson

"We come closest to God at our lowest moments." - Terry Anderson, fully Terry A. Anderson

"Real joy seems dissonant from the human character in its present condition; and if it be felt, it must come from a higher region, for the world is shadowed by sorrow; thorns array the ground; the very clouds, while they weep fertility on our mountains, seem also to shed a tear on man’s grave who departs, unlike the beauties of summer, to return no more; who fades unlike the sons of the forest, which another summer beholds new clothed, when he is unclothed and forgotten." - Dwight Douglas Andrews

"Education should be a way of making inquiring minds inquire. Students enter school as question marks but in too many schools they leave as periods. We must teach them to imagine, to train their memories." - Sandy Andron, born Alexander Andron

"Grow antennae, not horns." - James B. Angell, fully James Burrill Angell

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." - Michelangelo, aka Michaelangelo Buonarroti, fully Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni NULL

"Genius is eternal patience." - Michelangelo, aka Michaelangelo Buonarroti, fully Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni NULL