Great Throughts Treasury

"A man whose youth has no follies, will in his maturity have no power."

"A man's as old as he's feeling, A woman as old as she looks. "

"The true way to render age vigorous is to prolong the youth of the mind."

"Death a friend that alone can bring the peace his treasures cannot purchase, and remove the pain his physicians cannot cure."

"Just take a trifling handful, O philosopher! Of magic matter: give it a slight toss over the ambient ether—and I don’t see why you should n’t make a sky."

"Life and the Universe show spontaneity; down with ridiculous notions of Deity! Churches and creeds are lost in the mists; Truth must be sought with the Positivists."

"O, to bring back the great Homeric time, The simple manners and the deed sublime: When the wise Wanderer, often foiled by Fate, Through the long furrow drave the ploughshare straight."

"There was an ape in the days that were earlier, Centuries passed and his hair became curlier; Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist-- Then he was a Man and a Positivist."

"All through the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The gray-blue East, a world too soon, There sings a Thrush amid the limes. God's poet, hid in foliage green, Sings endless songs, himself unseen; Right seldom come his silent times. Linger, ye summer hours serene! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes! Nor from these confines wander out, Where the old gun, bucolic lout, Commits all day his murderous crimes: Though cherries ripe are sweet, no doubt, Sweeter thy song amid the limes. May I not dream God sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air, Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes With music's soul, all praise and prayer? Is that thy lesson in the limes? Closer to God art thou than I: His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly Through silent ether's summer climes. Ah, never may thy music die! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!"

"Hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander."

"War in fact is becoming contemptible, and ought to be put down by the great nations of Europe, just as we put down a vulgar mob."