Great Throughts Treasury

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."

"The third rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."

"A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference."

"A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards."

"A proper sense of proportion leaves no room for superstition. A man says, I have never been in a shipwreck, and becoming nervous touches wood. Why is he nervous? He has this paragraph before his eyes: Among the deceased was Mr. ??. By a remarkable coincidence this gentleman had been saying only a few days before that he had never been in a shipwreck. Little did he think that his next voyage would falsify his words so tragically. It occurs to him that he has read paragraphs like that again and again. Perhaps he has. Certainly he has never read a paragraph like this: Among the deceased was Mr. ??. By a remarkable coincidence this gentleman had never made the remark that he had not yet been in a shipwreck. Yet that paragraph could have been written truthfully thousands of times."

"A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise."

"A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business."

"Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being."

"And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop."

"And how are you? said Winnie-the-Pooh. Eeyore shook his head from side to side. Not very how, he said. I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time. Dear, dear, said Pooh, I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at you."

"Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake."

"And I?d say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea: There?s nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me."

"And now all the others are saying, ?What about Us?? So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book."

"And he respects Owl, because you can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count."

"And really, it wasn?t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn?t share them with somebody."

"And Teddy worried lots about the fact that he was rather stout. He thought: If only I were thin! But how does anyone begin?"

"And if anyone knows anything about anything, said Bear to himself, it's Owl who knows something about something, he said, or my name's not Winnie-the-Pooh, he said. which it is, he added. so there you are."

"And then he and Roo pushed each other about in a friendly way, and Tigger accidentally knocked over one or two chairs by accident, and Roo accidentally knocked over one on purpose, and Kanga said, Now then, run along."

"And then we?ll go out, Piglet, and sing my song to Eeyore. Which song, Pooh? The one we?re going to sing to Eeyore, explained Pooh."

"And that, said John, is that."

"Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing?"

"Because my spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places."

"Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it."

"Are you prepared to be the complete Watson? he asked. Watson? Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing? Because it all helps. My dear Tony, said Bill delightedly, need you ask? Antony said nothing, and Bill went on happily to himself, I perceive from the strawberry-mark on your shirt-front that you had strawberries for dessert. Holmes, you astonish me. Tut, tut, you know my methods. Where is the tobacco? The tobacco is in the Persian slipper. Can I leave my practice for a week? I can."

"Brains first and then Hard Work."

"Bores can be divided into two classes; those who have their own particular subject, and those who do not need a subject."

"But it isn't easy,' said Pooh. 'Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you."

"Bouncy trouncy flouncy pouncy fun fun fun fun fun. The most wonderful thing about tiggers is I'm the only one!"

"But now I am six. And I'm clever as clever. And now I think I'll stay six now forever and ever."

"But [Pooh] couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep the more he couldn't. He tried counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better, Pooh could bear it no longer."

"But Piglet is so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very comfortable to feel him when you are not quite sure whether twice seven is twelve or twenty-two."

"But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there... and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it."

"But what I like doing best is Nothing. How do you do Nothing? asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time. Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and you go and do it. Oh, I see, said Pooh. This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing right now. Oh, I see, said Pooh again. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear and not bothering. Oh! said Pooh."

"By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, There is no hurry. We shall get there some day. But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late."

"Christopher Robin had a question to ask first, and he was wondering how to ask it. Well, he said at last, it's a very nice house, and if your own house is blown down, you must go somewhere else, musn't you, Piglet? What would you do, if your house was blown down? Before Piglet could think, Pooh answered for him. He'd come and live with me, said Pooh, wouldn't you? Piglet squeezed his paw. Thank you, Pooh, he said, I should love to."

"Christopher Robin was home by this time, because it was the afternoon, and he was so glad to see them that they stayed there until very nearly tea-time, and then they had a Very Nearly tea, which is one you forget about afterwards, and hurried on to Pooh Corner, so as to see Eeyore before it was too late to have a Proper Tea with Owl."

"Christopher Robin... just said it had an x.' 'It isn't their necks I mind,' said Piglet earnestly. 'It's their teeth."

"Did I miss? you asked. You didn't exactly miss, said Pooh, But you missed the balloon. I'm so sorry, you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the balloon and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground."

"Did you make that song up? Well, I sort of made it up, said Pooh, It isn't Brain... but it comes to me sometimes. Ah, said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them."

"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

"Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston pie, a fly can't bird, but a bird can fly. Ask me a riddle and I reply?"

"Do you remember, he said, one of Holmes's little scores over Watson about the number of steps up to the Baker Street lodging? Poor old Watson had been up and down them a thousand times, but he had never thought of counting them, whereas Holmes had counted them as a matter of course, and knew that there were seventeen. And that was supposed to be the difference between observation and non-observation. Watson was crushed again, and Holmes appeared to him more amazing than ever. Now, it always seemed to me that in that matter Holmes was the ass, and Watson the sensible person. What on earth is the point of keeping in your head an unnecessary fact like that? If you really want to know at any time the number of steps to your lodging, you can ring up your landlady and ask her."

"Drinking your milk and talking at the same time may result in your having to be patted on the back and dried for quite a long time afterwords."

"Eeyore, the old grey donkey, stood by the side of the stream and looked at himself in the water. "Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic.""

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Friendship, said Christopher Robin, is a very comforting thing to have."

"Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad."

"From what I've read of detective stories, inspectors always do want to drag the pond first."

"For I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me."

"Forever isn't long at all, Christopher, as long as I'm with you."