Great Throughts Treasury

"There is one art, not more not less: to do all things with artlessness."

"It isn't enough to exasperate others. You have to remember to gladden yourself! "

"The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less."

"If no thought your mind does visit, make your speech not too explicit."

"The noble art of losing face may one day save the human race and turn into eternal merit what weaker minds would call disgrace."

"Living is a thing you do now or never — which do you? Living Is — As eternity is reckoned there's a lifetime in a second."

"A bit beyond perceptions reach I sometimes believe I see that life is two locked boxes each containing the other’s key. "

"A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong."

"After all, what is art? Art is the creative process and it goes through all fields. Einstein’s theory of relativity – now that is a work of art! Einstein was more of an artist in physics than on his violin."

"Art is solution to problems which cannot be formulated clearly before they have been solved."

"Art is solving problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved. The shaping of the question is part of the answer. "

"Art is this: art is the solution of a problem which cannot be expressed explicitly until it is solved. "

"Co-existence or no existence. That Is The Question. "

"Experts have their expert fun ex cathedra telling one just how nothing can be done."

"Foes of what's cooking see no worth behind it. Those that are looking for nothing — will find it."

"Freedom means you're free to do just whatever pleases you; — if, of course that is to say, what you please is what you may."

"Giving in is no defeat. Passing on is no retreat. Selves are made to rise above. You shall live in what you love."

"He that lets the small things bind him leaves the great undone behind him."

"Here lies, extinguished in his prime, a victim of modernity: but yesterday he hadn't time -- and now he has eternity."

"Idiots are really one hundred per cent when they are also intelligent."

"If you possess more than just eight things then you are possessed by them."

"In International Consequences the players must reckon to reap what they've sown. We have a defense against other defenses, but what's to defend us against our own?"

"It ought to be plain how little you gain by getting excited and vexed. You'll always be late for the previous train, and always on time for the next. "

"Let the world pass in its time-ridden race; never get caught in its snare. Remember, the only acceptable case for being in any particular place is having no business there. "

"Love while you've got love to give. Live while you've got life to live."

"Man is the animal that draws lines which he himself then stumbles over. In the whole pattern of civilization there have been two tendencies, one toward straight lines and rectangular patterns and one toward circular lines. There are reasons, mechanical and psychological, for both tendencies. Things made with straight lines fit well together and save space. And we can move easily – physically or mentally – around things made with round lines. But we are in a straitjacket, having to accept one or the other, when often some intermediate form would be better."

"Nature, it seems, is the popular name for milliards and milliards and milliards of particles playing their infinite game of billiards and billiards and billiards. "

"Nobody can be lucky all the time, so when your luck deserts you in some fashion. Don't think you've been abandoned in your prime, but rather that you're saving up your ration."

"Our choicest plans have fallen through, our airiest castles tumbled over, because of lines we neatly drew and later neatly stumbled over."

"Our so-called limitations, I believe, apply to faculties we don't apply. We don't discover what we can't achieve until we make an effort not to try. "

"People are self-centered to a nauseous degree. They will keep on about themselves while I'm explaining me."

"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back."

"Shun advice at any price - that's what I call good advice."

"Taking fun as simply fun and earnestness in earnest shows how thoroughly thou none of the two discernest."

"The human spirit sublimates the impulses it thwarts: a healthy sex life mitigates the lust for other sports."

"The Universe may be as great as they say. But it wouldn't be missed if it didn't exist."

"The way to grow grand is not: to demand. In life's every field you are what you yield. "

"They're busy making bigger roads, and better roads and more, so that people can discover even faster than before that everything is everywhere alike."

"Those who always know what’s best are a universal pest."

"Those Who Know a bit beyond perception's reach. I sometimes believe I see that Life is two locked boxes, each containing the other's key."

"To make a name for learning when other roads are barred, take something very easy and make it very hard."

"True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise. "

"We ought to live each day as though it were our last day here below. But if I did, alas, I know it would have killed me long ago. "

"We shall have to evolve problem-solvers galore — since each problem they solve creates ten problems more."

"When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it's well to remember that Things Take Time."

"A poet should be of the old-fashioned meaningless brand: obscure, esoteric, symbolic, -- the critics demand it; so if there's a poem of mine that you do understand I'll gladly explain what it means till you don't understand it."

"Go on a starlit night, stand on your head, leave your feet dangling outwards into space, and let the starry firmament you tread be, for the moment, your elected base. Feel Earth's colossal weight of ice and granite, of molten magma, water, iron, and lead; and briefly hold this strangely solid planet balanced upon your strangely solid head."

"Life makes senses and who could doubt it, if we have no doubt about it."

"Love is like a pineapple, sweet and undefinable."

"As eternity is reckoned there's a lifetime in a second."