Great Throughts Treasury

"If I were to begin life again, I should want it just as it was; only I would open my eyes a little more."

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."

"Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: "I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich.""

"Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it."

"One should operate by dissociation and not by association, of ideas. An association is almost always commonplace. Dissociation decomposes, and uncovers latent affinities."

"People always confuse the man and the artist because chance has united them in the same body."

"The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse."

"The void yields up nothing. You have to be a great poet to make it ring."

"Our tastes often improve at the expense of our happiness."

"Words are the small change of thought."

"There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire."

"We are in the world to laugh."

"Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others."

"Being bored is an insult to oneself."

"It is not enough to be happy: It is also necessary that others not be."

"When the defects of others are perceived with too much clarity, it is because one possesses them oneself."

"As I grow to understand life less and less I grow to love it more and more."

"Fame is a constant effort. "

"If you are afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right."

"It is not how old you are, but how you are old."

"The danger of success is that it makes us forget the world's dreadful injustice."

"We are so happy to advise others that occasionally we even do it in their interest."

"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted."

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

"Wrinkles are engraved smiles."

"There are no friends; only moments of friendship."

"I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one's self."

"Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none."

"If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room."

"If money does not make you happy, give it back."

"God does not believe in our God."

"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties."

"There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune."

"Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice."

"A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings."

"A cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea."

"Add three letters to Paris, this is heaven."

"An cold in the head causes less suffering than an idea."

"An optimist is a driver who thinks that empty space at the curb won't have a hydrant beside it."

"At the bottom of all patriotism there is war: that is why I am no patriot."

"At work, the harder it is to turn on the small lamp brain. After it burns alone."

"A sweeper is proud to talk with the driver of a car master."

"A word so pretty as we would like with cheeks to kiss."

"Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend."

"Better health, it is not to feel his health."

"Beware!ÿHappiness overflowing splashes neighbor."

"Certainly there are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune."

"Don't tell a woman she's pretty; tell her there's no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you."

"Everything is beautiful.ÿWe must speak of a pig as a flower."

"Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it."