Great Throughts Treasury

"Shame leaves us by degrees."

"All extremities must end or mend."

"He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much."

"And you shall find the greatest enemy a man can have is his prosperity."

"Pity is sworn servant unto love."

"And for the few that only lend their ear, that few is all the world."

"And who in time knowes whither we may vent the treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores this gaine of our best glorie shal be sent, tinrich unknowing Nations with our stores? What worlds in thyet unformed Occident may come refind with th’ accents that are ours?"

"Are they shadows that we see? And can shadows pleasures give? Pleasures only shadows be, cast by bodies we conceive."

"As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind To look out through, and his Frailty find."

"Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew, Whose short refresh upon tender green, Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show And straight is gone, as it had never been."

"But ah, no more! this must not be foretold, for women grieve to think they must be old."

"By adversity are wrought the greatest works of admiration, and all the fair examples of renown, out of distress and misery are grown."

"Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish, and restore the light, With dark forgetting of my cares return."

"Come, worthy Greek! Ulysses, come; possess these shores with me! The winds and seas are troublesome and here we may be free."

"Custom, that is before all law; Nature, that is above all art."

"Fair is my Love, and cruel as she’s fair her brow shades frowns, although her eyes are sunny; her smiles are lightning, though her pride despair; and her disdains are gall, her favours honey. A modest maid, decked with a blush of honour, whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,"

"Fair nymph, if fame or honour were to be attained with ease, then would I come and rest me there,"

"How dost thou wear and weary out thy days, restless ambition, never at an end!"

"If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts, haunting untrodden paths to wail apart; my pleasures horror, music tragic notes, tears in mine eyes and sorrow at my heart. If this be love, to live a living death, then do I love and draw this weary breath."

"Let others sing of knights and paladins in aged accents and untimely words, paint shadows, in imaginary lines."

"Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoyed, it sighing cries, Hey ho."

"Man is a creature of a willful head, and hardly driven is, but eas'ly led"

"Men do not weigh the stalk for that it was,"

"Men do not weigh the stalk for that it was, when once they find her flower, her glory, pass."

"My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning. The world shall find this miracle in me that fire can burn when all the matters spent: then what my faith hath been thyself shalt see, and that thou wast unkind thou mayst repent— thou mayst repent that thou hast scornd my tears, when Winter snows upon thy sable hairs."

"No April can revive thy withered flowers, whose blooming grace adorns thy glory now; swift speeding Time, feathered with flying hours, dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. Oh let not then such riches waste in vain, but love whilst that thou mayst be loved again."

"Pleasures are not, if they last; in their passing is their best: glory is more bright and gay in a flash, and so away."

"Princes in this case do hate the traitor, though they love the treason."

"Sacred religion! Mother of Form and Fear!"

"Short is the glory of the blushing rose, the hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose."

"Striving to tell his woes, words would not come; tor light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dumb."

"Suffice they show I lived, and loved thee dear."

"Th’ aspirer, once attain’d unto the top, Cuts off those means by which himself got up."

"The absent danger greater still appears less fears he who is near the thing he fears"

"The best thing of our life, our rest, and give us up to toil."

"The stars that have most glory have no rest."

"The wise are above books"

"These are the arks, the trophies, I erect, that fortify thy name against old age; and these thy sacred virtues must protect against the dark and Times consuming rage."

"This honour is a thing conceived And rests on others fame."

"This is the Thing that I was born to do."

"This many-headed monster, Multitude."

"To purge the mischiefs that increase And all good order mar, For oft we see a wicked peace To be well changed for war."

"To spend the time luxuriously becomes not men of worth."

"Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man."

"We come to know best what men are, in their worse jeopardizes."

"When men shall find thy flow’r, thy glory, pass, and thou with careful brow, sitting alone, received hast this message from thy glass, that tells the truth and says that All is gone."

"When winter snows upon thy sable hairs, and frost of age hath nipped thy beauties near; when dark shall seem thy day that never clears, and all lies withered that was held so dear, then take this picture which I here present thee, limned with a pencil not all unworthy;"

"When your eyes have done their part thought must length’n it in the heart."