Great Throughts Treasury

"Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste fore natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood."

"Through the wide world he only is alone who lives not for another."

"Women have the understanding of the heart, which is better than that of the head."

"A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing"

"I lived to write, and wrote to live."

"Across the threshold led, and every tear kissed off as soon as shed, his house she enters, there to be a light shining within when all without is night; a guardian-angel o'er his life presiding, doubling his pleasure, and his cares dividing!"

"A man who attempts to read all the new productions must do as the flea does,"

"She was good as she was fair, None"

"It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else."

"The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still."

"Think nothing done while aught remains to do."

"We should always record our thoughts in affliction: set up waymarks, that we may recur to them in health; for then we are in other circumstances, and can never recover our sick-bed views. The good are better made by ill, as odors crushed are sweeter still."

"That very law which moulds a tear And bids it trickle from its source,"

"When a new book is published, read an old one."

"You may call it madness"

"When I was young, I used to say good-natured things, and nobody listened to me. Now that I am old, I say ill-natured things, and everybody listens to me."

"Age has now stamped with its signet that ingenuous brow."

"And the Sabbath bell, that over wood and wild and mountain dell wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy with sounds most musical, most melancholy."

"As pure in thought as angels are, to know her was to love her."

"As though I lived to write, and wrote to live."

"But the day is spent; and stars are kindling in the firmament, to us how silent--though like ours, perchance, busy and full of life and circumstance."

"By many a temple half as old as Time."

"Day glimmer'd in the east, and the white Moon hung like a vapor in the cloudless sky."

"Every day a little life, a blank to be inscribed with gentle thoughts."

"Devout yet cheerful, active yet resigned."

"Example is a motive of very prevailing force on the actions of men."

"Feeling hearts--touch them but lightly?pour a thousand melodies unheard before."

"Fireside happiness, to hours of ease blest with that charm, the certainty to please."

"For who, alas! has lived, nor in the watches of the night recalled words he has wished unsaid and deeds undone."

"Generous as brave, affection, kindness, and the sweet offices of love and duty, were to him as needful as his daily bread."

"Go! you may call it madness, folly; You shall not chase my gloom away! There 's such a charm in melancholy I would not if I could be gay."

"Gentle to others, to himself severe."

"Hail, memory, hail! in thy exhaustion mine from age to age unnumbered treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, and Place and Time are subject to thy sway!"

"Hence, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence! Thy chain of adamant can bind that little world, the human mind, and sink its noblest powers to impotence."

"Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal."

"Her tears her only eloquence."

"I came to the place of my birth and cried: "The friends of my youth, where are they?"--and an echo answered, "Where are they?""

"Kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire, as summer clouds flash forth electric fire."

"I am in Rome! Oft as the morning ray visits these eyes, waking at once I cry, whence this excess of joy? What has befallen me? And from within a thrilling voice replies, thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts rush on my mind, a thousand images; and I spring up as girt to run a race!"

"Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears! The red-cross squadrons madly rage, and mow thro' infancy and age"

"Long on the wave reflected lustres play."

"Man to the last is but a froward child; so eager for the future, come what may, and to the present so insensible."

"Lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! Each stamps its image as the other flies!"

"Oh ! She was good as she was fair, none?none on earth above her! As pure in thought as angels are: to know her was to love her."

"Mine be a cot beside the hill; a beehive's hum shall soothe my ear; a willowy brook that turns a mill, with many a fall, shall linger near."

"Not dead, but gone before."

"Looks that asked, yet dared not hope relief."

"Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure that fills my bosom when I sigh, you would not rob me of a treasure monarchs are too poor to buy."

"Pointing to such, well might Cornelia say, when the rich casket shone in bright array, "These are my Jewels!" Well of such as he, when Jesus spake, well might the language be, "Suffer these little ones to come to me!""

"Oh! That the Chemist's magic art could crystallize this sacred treasure!... That very law which moulds a tear, and bids it trickle from its source; that law preserves the earth a sphere, and guides the planets in their course."