Great Throughts Treasury

"Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others."

"Conscience whispers but interest screams aloud."

"Envy, like flame, blackens that which is above it, and which it cannot reach."

"Our vices live upon our incomes; our vices consume our capital."

"The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it."

"The most exacting jailer is our own conscience."

"The true worth of a soul is revealed as much by the motive it attributes to the actions of others as by its own deeds."

"There are wounds of self-love which one does not confess to one’s dearest friends."

"We like to give in the sunlight and to receive in the dark."

"We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give."

"A pedant holds more to instruct us with what he knows, than of what we are ignorant."

"Beauty and ugliness disappear equally under the wrinkles of age; one is lost in them; the other hidden."

"In love we are not only liable to betray ourselves, but also the secrets of others."

"It is more pitiable once to have been rich than not to be rich now."

"Let us respect gray hairs, but, above all, our own."

"Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance."

"Without big words, how could many people say small things?"

"What we gain by experience is not worth that we lose in illusion."

"Every generous illusion of youth leaves a wrinkle as it departs. Experience is the successive disenchanting of the things of life; it is reason enriched with the heart's spoils. "

"Let us believe neither half of the good people tell us of ourselves, nor half of the evil they say of others."

"Adversity, which makes us indulgent to others, renders them severe towards us."

"Do not crowd the understanding; it can comprehend so much and no more. A pint pot will not contain the measure of a quart."

"Doubt springs from the mind; faith is the daughter of the soul."

"Happiness is where we find it, but very rarely where we seek it."

"It is easy to be virtuous in prospective."

"It requires less character to discover the faults of others than to tolerate them."

"Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue with bigots."

"Many fortunes, like rivers, have a pure source, but grow muddy as they grow large."

"Pleasure limps for him who enjoys it alone."

"Promises retain men better than services; for hope is to them a chain, and gratitude a thread."

"The happiness of the tender heart is increased by what it can take away from the wretchedness of others."

"The hatred we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than our own."

"The weak-minded man is the slave of his vices and the dupe of his virtues."

"The wisest man may always learn something from the humblest peasant."

"There are wounds of self-love which one does not confess to one's dearest friends."