Great Throughts Treasury

"Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it's what they bring to the world that really counts."

"It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will."

"We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us."

"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes."

"It's not what the world holds for you. It's what you bring to it."

"Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it."

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."

"You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams."

"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

"Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting."

"There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland."

"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."

"Humor is the spiciest condiment in the feast of existence. Laugh at your mistakes but learn from them, joke over your troubles but gather strength from them, make a jest of your difficulties but overcome them."

"I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then."

"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?"

"I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people KNOW more... though I know that IS the noblest ambition... but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me... to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born."

"The body grows slowly and steadily but the soul grows by leaps and bounds. It may come to its full stature in an hour."

"All life lessons are not learned at college,'she thought. Life teaches them everywhere."

"I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted."

"You were never poor as long as you had something to love."

"I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud."

"There might be some hours of loneliness. But there was something wonderful even in loneliness. At least you belonged to yourself when you were lonely."

"Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?"

"Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds."

"When you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding. "

"I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real me - back here - is just the same."

"I'm afraid to speak or move for fear that all this wonderful beauty will just vanish... like a broken silence."

"When you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worthwhile."

"Those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths and the natures which enjoy most keenly are those which also suffer most sharply."

"It will come sometime. Some beautiful morning she will just wake up and find it is Tomorrow. Not Today but Tomorrow. And then things will happen ... wonderful things."

"Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing."

"In this world you've just got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and take whatever God sends."

"There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more."

"We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great."

"I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in spirit, thank you ma'am."

"Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star."