Great Throughts Treasury

"To be humble to superiors, is duty; to equals, is courtesy; to inferiors, is nobleness; and to all, safety; it being a virtue that, for all its lowliness, commandeth those it stoops to."

"Nay, tempt me not to love again: There was a time when love was sweet; Dear Nea! had I known thee then, Our souls had not been slow to meet! But oh! this weary heart hath run So many a time the rounds of pain, Not even for thee, thou lovely one! Would I endure such pangs again."

"Why dost thou gaze upon the sky? O that I were yon spangled sphere! Then every star should be an eye, To wander o'er thy beauties here."

"When I remember all The friends so link'd together, I've seen around me fall, Like leaves in wintry weather; I feel like one who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, And all but he departed."

"Come in the evening, or come in the morning-- Come when you're looked for, or come without warning; A thousand welcomes you'll find here before you, And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you!"

"He has not sailed as a seaman, but as a traveler, or rather a philosopher."

"A faint faith is better than a strong heresy."

"A fond old man is often as full of words as a woman."

"A friendship like love is warm; a love like friend ship is steady."

"A life of pleasure is either a real evil, and in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it, but, on the contrary, to keep them from it all we can, as from that which is most hurtful and deadly..."

"A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse."

"A philosopher being asked what was the first thing necessary to win the love of a woman, answered: "Opportunity.""

"A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him."

"A pretty wife is something for the fastidious vanity of a rougue to retire upon."

"A tale that fleeth through many mouths catcheth many feathers."

"A thousand welcomes you'll find here before you,"

"A good tale evil told were better untold, and an evil take well told need none other solicitor."

"Aesop says in a fable that everyone carries a double wallet on his shoulders, and into the one that hangs at his breast he puts other folk?s faults and he looks and pores over it often. In the other he puts all his own and swings it at his back, which he never likes to look in, although others that come behind him cast an eye into it sometimes."

"Afterward he exhorted them, and besought them very earnestly to pray to God for the King, that He should give him good counsel, protesting that he died his good servant, and God's first."

"Alas! too well, too well they know the pain, the penitence, the woe, that passion brings down on the best, the wisest, and the loveliest."

"All the life must be led with one, and also all the griefs and displeasures coming therewith patiently be taken and borne."

"All things appear incredible to us, as they differ more or less from our own manners."

"Although poets are with many men taken but for painted words, yet do they much help the judgment, and make a man among other things well furnished in one special thing, without which all learning is half lame... a good mother wit."

"An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man."

"And it will fall out as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore, you will provoke another; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others"

"And peradventure we have more cause to thank him for our loss than for our winning, for his wisdom better seeth what is good for us than we do ourselves. Therefore, I pray you be of good cheer, and take all the household with you to church, and there thank God, both for that he has given us, and for that he has taken from us, and for that he hath left us; which, if it please him, he can increase when he will, and if it please him to leave us yet less, at his pleasure be it."

"An enchanted world is one that speaks to the soul, to the mysterious depths of the heart and imagination where we find value, love, and union with the world around us. As mystics of many religions have taught, that sense of rapturous union can give a"

"And soon, too soon, we part with pain, To sail o'er silent seas again."

"And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns."

"And the oftener you come here the more I'll adore you!"

"And thus from the great numbers among them that are neither suffered to be idle nor to be employed in any fruitless labor, you may easily make the estimate how much may be done in those few hours in which they are obliged to labor."

"And what reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life, not only without pleasure, but in pain, if there is nothing to be expected after death?"

"And when the devil hath seen that they have set so little by him, after certain essays, made in such times as he thought most fitting, he hath given that temptation quite over. And this he doth not only because the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked, but also lest, with much tempting the man to the sin to which he could not in conclusion bring him, he should much increase his merit."

"And, indeed, though they differ concerning other things, yet all agree in this: that they think there is one Supreme Being that made and governs the world, whom they call, in the language of their country, Mithras."

"Anticipated spears wound less."

"Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all."

"As Boethius says: For one man to be proud that he has rule over other men is much like one mouse being proud to have rule over other mice in a barn."

"As he drew his beard aside upon placing his head on the block: This hath not offended the king."

"As pigges do in a poke."

"As robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove brave robbers, so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of life."

"As their cities are composed of families, so their families are made up of those that are nearly related to one another. Their women, when they grow up, are married out, but all the males, both children and grand-children, live still in the same house, in great obedience to their common parent, unless age has weakened his understanding, and in that case he that is next to him in age comes in his room; but lest any city should become either too great, or by any accident be dis-peopled, provision is made that none of their cities may contain above six thousand families, besides those of the country around it."

"Ask a woman's advice, and whatever she advises, Do the very reverse and you're sure to be wise."

"Bastard Freedom waves Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves."

"Because the soul has such deep roots in personal and social life and its values run so contrary to modern concerns, caring for the soul may well turn out to be a radical act, a challenge to accepted norms."

"Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, which I gaze on so fondly to-day."

"Besides, they say, when we eat something, what really happens is this. Our failing health starts fighting off the attacks of hunger, using the food as an ally. Gradually it begins to prevail, and, in this very process of winning back its normal strength, experiences the sense of enjoyment which we find so refreshing. Now, if health enjoys the actual battle, why wouldn't it also enjoy the victory? Or are we to suppose that when it has finally managed to regain its former vigour - the one thing that it has been fighting for all this time - it promptly falls into a coma, and fails to notice or take advantage of its success? As for the idea that one isn't conscious of health except through its opposite, they say that's quite untrue. Everyone's perfectly aware of feeling well, unless he's asleep or actually feeling ill. Even the most insensitive and apathetic sort of person will admit that it's delightful to be healthy - and what is delight, but a synonym for pleasure?"

"Better 'tis to be fortunate than wise!"

"Bill Dotson holds a special place in my life,"

"Blest tears of soul-felt penitence, in whose benign, redeeming flow, is felt the first, the only sense of guiltless joy that guilt can know."

"But if one shall say, that by that law we are only forbid to kill any except when the laws of the land allow of it, upon the same grounds, laws may be made, in some cases, to allow of adultery and perjury: for God having taken from us the right of disposing either of our own or of other people?s lives, if it is pretended that the mutual consent of men in making laws can authorize man-slaughter in cases in which God has given us no example, that it frees people from the obligation of the divine law, and so makes murder a lawful action, what is this, but to give a preference to human laws before the divine?"