Great Throughts Treasury

"Victory is not won in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more."

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning."

"I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen."

"The more one learns, the more he understands his ignorance."

"I am somebody. I am me. And I don't need anybody to make me somebody."

"The only thing that never changes is that everything changes."

"Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and the movements and changes in the world around him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, 'This I am today; that I will be tomorrow.' The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds."

"A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think."

"No one can "get" an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process."

"A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time."

"Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else."

"Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place."

"A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself. You have a chance to select from pretty elegant furnishings."

"Knowledge was not meant to be locked behind doors. It breathes best in the open air where all men can inhale its essence."

"Reading without thinking is nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think."

"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

"No man ever raised a monument to a cynic or wrote a poem about a man without faith."

"Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him."

"Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone."

"Today is all we have, tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality."

"Love is a moment of stillness that sometimes a word can shatter to pieces. Or love can be a thing that endures, a rich, deep current flowing unending through the years."

"It is often said that one has but one life to live, but that is nonsense. For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time."

"There are shadows for the shadows of things, as a reflection seen in a mirror of a mirror. We know there are circles within circles and dimensions beyond dimension. Reality is itself a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond."

"What is education but a conditioning of the mind to a society and a way of life. "

"A good beginning makes a good end. "

"Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value. "

"No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations."

"Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content."

"To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain."

"Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself."

"Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wastelands to the spirit."

"A sword is never enough. The mind is also a weapon, but like the sword it must be honed and kept sharp."

"No man has the right to be ignorant."

"The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for."

"A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is."

"A great book begins with an idea; a great life, with a determination."

"A journey is time suspended."

"A man marries by accident, a woman by design."

"A man shares his days with hunger, thirst, and cold, with the good times and the bad, and the first part of being a man is to understand that."

"A man can lose sight of everything else when he's bent on revenge, and it ain't worth it."

"A little rest and meditation often saves a lot of riding over rough country."

"A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place or done anything."

"A true gentleman is at a disadvantage in dealing with women. Women are realist, and their tactics are realistic, so no man should be a gentleman where women are concerned unless the women are very, very young. Women admire gentlemen, and sleep with cads."

"A mountain man tries to live with the country instead of against it."

"A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat."

"After a few days, I mused, I would have no trouble. Whoever heard of a revolution of fat men?"

"A writer?s brain is like a magician?s hat. If you?re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first."

"All loose things seem to drift down to the sea, and so did I."

"Any man can shoot a gun, and with practice he can draw fast and shoot accurately, but that makes no difference. What counts is how you stand up when somebody is shooting back at you."

"And who is Regal? Right now he's laid up. Had him a little go-around with a bear. You mean he shot a bear? Not exactly. This was a notorious bear, a troublesome bear, and he tackled Regal, not knowing he was a Sackett, so Regal had to kill him..."