Great Throughts Treasury

"The world would be both better and brighter if we would dwell on the duty of happiness, as well as on the happiness of duty."

"A wise system of education will at least teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn."

"A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work."

"Before buying anything, it is well to ask if one could do without it."

"Don't be afraid of showing affection. Be warm and tender, thoughtful and affectionate. Men are more helped by sympathy than by service. Love is more than money, and a kind word will give more pleasure than a present."

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."

"Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin."

"If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done."

"In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking."

"Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more."

"Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not."

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time."

"Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven."

"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn."

"We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety."

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."

"When important decisions have to be taken, the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep you awake. Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthful sleep than plenty of open air."

"When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace."

"Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it."