Great Throughts Treasury

"Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other."

"As gold is tried by the furnace, and the baser metal shown, so the hollow-hearted friend is known by adversity. "

"He who devises evil for another falls at last into his own pit, and the most cunning finds himself caught by what he had prepared for another. But virtue without guile, erect like the lofty palm, rises with greater vigour when it is oppressed. "

"If our inward griefs were written on our brows, how many who are envied now would be pitied. It would seem that they had their deadliest foe in their own breast, and their whole happiness would be reduced to mere seeming."

"Fortune is the best school of courage when she is fraught with anger, in the same way as winds and tempests are the school of the sailorboy."

"How full of error is the judgment of mankind! They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons."

"If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied!"

"If you wish to behold God, you may see Him in every object around; search in your breast, and you will find Him there. And if you do not yet perceive where He dwells, confute me, if you can, and say where He is not."

"It is by no means a fact that death is the worst of all evils; when it comes it is an alleviation to mortals who are worn out with sufferings."

"It is the just decree of Heaven that a traitor never sees his danger till his ruin is at hand."

"Know that the slender shrub which is seen to bend, conquers when it yields to the storm."

"Let him speak of his own deeds, and not of those of his forefathers. High birth is mere accident, and not virtue; for if reason had controlled birth, and given empire only to the worthy, perhaps Arbaces would have been Xerxes, and Xerxes Arbaces."

"O, how full of error is the judgment of mankind. They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons. They call it fortune when they know not the cause, and thus worship their own ignorance changed into a deity."

"Of all faults the greatest is the excess of impious terror, dishonoring divine grace. He who despairs wants love, wants faith; for faith, hope, and love are three torches which blend their light together, nor does the one shine without the other."

"The aged oak upon the steep stands more firm and secure if assailed by angry winds; for if the winter bares its head, the more strongly it strikes its roots into the ground, acquiring strength as it loses beauty."

"Truth fears no question."

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit."

"If fear alters behavior, you're already defeated."

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

"An old warrior is never in haste to strike the blow."

"If every man's internal care Were written on his brow, How many would our pity share Who raise our envy now?"

"The bee and the serpent often sip from the self-same flower."

"In the dark a glimmering light is often sufficient for the pilot to find the polar star and to fix his course."

"That water which wall from some Alpine height is dashed, broken, and will murmur loudly, but grows limpid by its fall."

"The canker which the trunk conceals is revealed by the leaves, the fruit, or the flower."

"What will the stream become in its lengthened course, if it be so turpid as its source?"