Great Throughts Treasury

"A person's character is but half formed till after wedlock."

"A wise man knows his own ignorance; a fool thinks he knows everything."

"Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty."

"Good humor is the best shield against the darts of satirical raillery."

"Immortality is the greatness of our being; the scene for attaining the fullness and perfection of our existence."

"Impure thoughts awaken impure feelings, lead to impure expressions, and beget impure actions, and these lead to imbecility both of body and mind, and to the ruin of all that is noble and pure in character."

"Integrity is the first step to true greatness."

"It is only the constant exertion and working of our sensitive, intellectual, moral, and physical machinery that keeps us from rusting, and so becoming useless."

"Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things."

"Live only for today, and you ruin tomorrow."

"No man has a right to do as he pleases, except when he pleases to do right."

"Recreation is not being idle; it is easing the wearied part by change of occupation. To re-create strength, rest. To re-create mind, repose. To re-create cheerfulness, hope in God, or change the object of attention to one more elevated and worthy of thought."

"Self-approbation, when founded in truth and a good conscience, is a source of some of the purest joys known to man."

"Some act first, think afterward, and then repent forever."

"True greatness consists in being great in little things."

"When the heart is won, the understanding is easily convinced."

"Wickedness, when properly punished, is disgraceful only to the offender; unpunished, it is disgraceful to the whole community."

"Meditation is the nurse of thought, and thought the food for meditation."

"Much of the wisdom of one age is the folly of the next."

"Never live in hope or expectation, while your arms are folded. God helps those that help themselves. Providence smiles on those who put their shoulders to the wheel that propels to wealth and happiness."

"The morose man takes both narrow and selfish views of life and the world; he is either envious of the happiness of others, or denies its existence."

"There is a noble forgetfulness - that which does not remember injuries."

"Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities."