Great Throughts Treasury

"He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave."

"No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our lakes receive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where “still the shore” a “brave attempt resounds."

"The Graces naked danced about the place, The winds and trees amazed With silence on her gazed, The flowers did smile, like those upon her face; And as their aspen stalks those fingers band, That she might read my case, A hyacinth I wished me in her hand. "

"All that the hand of man can uprear, is either overturned by the hand of man, or at length by standing and continuing consumed: as if there were a secret opposition in Fate (the unevitable decree of the Eternal) to control our industry, and countercheck all our devices and proposing. Possessions are not enduring, children lose their names. . . ."

"All war will end when women cease to find men in uniforms attractive - discuss."

"As we had no part of our will on our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any on our leaving it, but soberly learn to will which he wills."

"Bright portals of the sky, emboss'd with sparkling stars, doors of eternity, with diamantine bars, your arras rich uphold, loose all your bolts and springs, ope wide your leaves of gold, that in your roofs may come the king of kings. O well-spring of this all! Thy father's image vive; word, that from nought did call what is, doth reason, live; the soul's eternal food, earth's joy, delight of heaven; all truth, love, beauty, good: to thee, to thee be praises ever given! O glory of the heaven! O sole delight of earth! To thee all power be given, god's uncreated birth! Of mankind lover true, indearer of his wrong, who doth the world renew, still be thou our salvation and our song!"

"Doth then the world go thus? Doth all thus move? Is this the justice which on earth we find? Is this that firm decree which all doth bind? Are these your influences, powers above? Those souls, which vice's moody mists most blind, blind fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove; and they who thee, poor idol virtue! Love, ply like a feather tossed by storm and wind. Ah! If a providence doth sway this all, why should best minds groan under most distress? Or why should pride humility make thrall, and injuries the innocent oppress? Heavens! Hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time when good may have, as well as bad, their prime!"

"For me starting the day without a pot of tea would be a day forever out of kilter."

"For what doth serve all that this world contains, sith she for whom those once to me were dear, no part of them can have now with me here?"

"God never had a church but there, men say, the devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles. I doubted of this saw, till on a day I westward spied great edinburgh’s saint gyles."

"He lives who dies to win a lasting name."

"Here is the pleasant place, and nothing wanted is, save she, alas!"

"I study myself more than any other subject; it is my metaphysic, and my physic."

"In mind's pure glass when I myself behold, and vively see how my best days are spent, what clouds of care above my head are roll'd, what coming harms which I cannot prevent: my begun course i, wearied, do repent, and would embrace what reason oft hath told; but scarce thus think i, when love hath controll'd all the best reasons reason could invent. Though sure I know my labour's end is grief, the more I strive that I the more shall pine, that only death can be my last relief: yet when I think upon that face divine, like one with arrow shot in laughter's place, Malgré my heart, I joy in my disgrace."

"Iron sharpens iron; scholar, the scholar."

"It is a well-known fact that most artists produce their best work early in their career. They may refine what they do but you usually get the measure of what they are about on their first outing."

"Lamp of heaven's crystal hall that brings the hours, Eye-dazzler, who makes the ugly night At thine approach fly to her slumb'ry bow'rs, And fills the world with wonder and delight; Life of all lives, death-giver by thy flight To southern pole from these six signs of ours, Goldsmith of all the stars, with silver bright Who moon enamels, Apelles of the flow'rs; Ah! from those watery plains thy golden head Raise up, and bring the so long lingering morn; A grave, nay, hell, I find become this bed, This bed so grievously where I am torn; But, woe is me! though thou now brought the day, Day shall but serve more sorrow to display."

"Let Zephyr only breathe and with her tresses play."

"Make an eternal spring; give life to this dark world which lieth dead. Spread forth thy golden hair in larger locks than thou wast wont before, and emperor-like decore with diadem of pearl thy temples fair."

"Mine eyes, dissolve your globes in briny streams, and with a cloud of sorrow dim your sight; the sun's bright sun is set, of late whose beams gave lustre to your day, day to your night. My voice, now deafen earth with anathemes, roar forth a challenge in the world's despite, tell that disguised grief is her delight, that life a slumber is of fearful dreams. And, woful mind, abhor to think of joy; my senses all now comfortless you hide, accept no object but of black annoy, tears, plaints, sighs, mourning weeds, graves gaping wide. I have nought left to wish, my hopes are dead, and all with her beneath a marble laid."

"My life lies in those eyes which have me slain."

"My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow with thy green mother in some shady grove, when immelodious winds but made thee move, and birds their ramage did on thee bestow."

"My thoughts hold mortal strife; I do detest my life, and with lamenting cries peace to my soul to bring oft call that prince which here doth monarchise: — but he, grim-grinning king, who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise, late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb, disdains to crop a weed, and will not come."

"O cruel beauty, meekness inhumane, That night and day contend with my desire, And seek my hope to kill, not quench my fire, by death, not balm, to ease my pleasant pain; though ye my thoughts tread down which would aspire, And bound my bliss, do not, alas! Disdain that I your matchless worth and grace admire, And for their cause these torments sharp sustain. Let great Empedocles vaunt of his death, Found in the midst of those Sicilian flames, and Phaëthon, that heaven him reft of breath, And Dædal's son, he nam'd the Samian streams: Their haps I envy not; my praise shall be, the fairest she that liv'd gave death to me."

"O fate! Conspir'd to pour your worst on me, o rigorous rigour, which doth all confound! With cruel hands ye have cut down the tree, and fruit and flower dispersed on the ground. A little space of earth my love doth bound; that beauty which did raise it to the sky, turn'd in neglected dust, now low doth lie, deaf to my plaints, and senseless of my wound. Ah! Did i live for this? Ah! Did I love? For this and was it she did so excel? That ere she well life's sweet-sour joys did prove, she should, too dear a guest, with horror dwell? Weak influence of heaven! What fair ye frame, falls in the prime, and passeth like a dream. O woful life! Life? No, but living death, frail boat of crystal in a rocky sea, a sport expos'd to fortune's stormy breath, which kept with pain, with terror doth decay: the false delights, true woes thou dost bequeath, mine all-appalled mind do so affray, that i those envy who are laid in earth, and pity them that run thy dreadful way. When did mine eyes behold one cheerful morn? When had my tossed soul one night of rest? When did not hateful stars my projects scorn? O! Now I find for mortals what is best; even, sith our voyage shameful is, and short, soon to strike sail, and perish in the port."

"O sacred blush, impurpling cheeks' pure skies with crimson wings which spread thee like the morn; o bashful look, sent from those shining eyes, which, though cast down on earth, couldst heaven adorn; o tongue, in which most luscious nectar lies, that can at once both bless and make forlorn; dear coral lip, which beauty beautifies, that trembling stood ere that her words were born; and you her words, words, no, but golden chains, which did captive mine ears, ensnare my soul, wise image of her mind, mind that contains a power, all power of senses to control; ye all from love dissuade so sweetly me, that i love more, if more my love could be."

"Of mortal glory, o soon darken'd ray! O posting joys of man, more swift than wind! O fond desires, which wing'd with fancies stray! O trait'rous hopes, which do our judgments blind! Lo! In a flash that light is gone away, which dazzle did each eye, delight each mind, and with that sun, from whence it came, combin'd, now makes more radiant heaven's eternal day. Let beauty now bedew her cheeks with tears, let widow'd music only roar and plain; poor virtue, get thee wings, and mount the spheres, and let thine only name on earth remain. Death hath thy temple raz'd, love's empire foil'd, the world of honour, worth, and sweetness spoil'd. Those eyes, those sparkling sapphires of delight, which thousand thousand hearts did set on fire, which made that eye of heaven that brings the light, oft jealous, stay amaz'd them to admire; that living snow, those crimson roses bright, those pearls, those rubies, which did breed desire, those locks of gold, that purple fair of tyre, are wrapt, ay me! Up in eternal night. What hast thou more to vaunt of, wretched world, sith she, who cursed thee made blest, is gone? Thine ever-burning lamps, rounds ever whirl'd, can unto thee not model such a one: for if they would such beauty bring on earth, they should be forc'd again to make her breath."

"Of this fair volume which we world do name if we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, of him who it corrects, and did it frame, we clear might read the art and wisdom rare."

"Property has its duties as well as its rights."

"Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace... On much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety."

"Sleep, silence's child, sweet father of soft rest, prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings indifferent host to shepherds and kings; sole comforter to minds with grief opprest"

"So that my life be brave, what though not long?"

"Study what thou art whereof thou art a part what thou knowest of this art this is really what thou art. All that is without thee also is within."

"The last and greatest herald of heaven's king, girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, among that savage brood the woods forth bring, which he than man more harmless found and mild."

"There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do."

"This is the morn should bring unto this grove my love, to hear and recompense my love."

"This life, which seems so fair, is like a bubble blown up in the air by sporting children's breath, who chase it everywhere and strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, and firm to hover in that empty height, that only is because it is so light. But in that pomp it doth not long appear; for when 'tis most admired, in a thought, because it erst was nought, it turns to nought."

"Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove, Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own Though solitary, who is not alone, But doth converse with that eternal love."

"To The Nightingale - sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours of winters past or coming, void of care, well pleased with delights which present are, (fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers) to rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers thou thy creator's goodness dost declare, and what dear gifts on thee he did not spare: a stain to human sense in sin that lours, what soul can be so sick which by thy songs (attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs, and lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven? Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise to airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays."

"Trust not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold, with gentle tides which on your temples flow, nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enroll'd; trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe, when first I did their burning rays behold, nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show than of the Thracian harper have been told. Look to this dying lily, fading rose, dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams made all the neighboring herbs and grass rejoice, and think how little is 'twixt life's extremes: the cruel tyrant that did kill those flow'rs, shall once, ay me! Not spare that spring of yours. That I so slenderly set forth my mind, writing I wot not what in ragged rhymes, and charg'd with brass into these golden times, when others tower so high, am left behind; I crave not Phoebus leave his sacred cell to bind my brows with fresh aonian bays; let them have that who tuning sweetest lays by tempe sit, or Aganippe's well; nor yet to venus' tree do I aspire, sith she for whom I might affect that praise, my best attempts with cruel words gainsays, and I seek not that others me admire. Of weeping myrrh the crown is which I crave, with a sad cypress to adorn my grave."

"What doth it serve to see sun's burning face, and skies enamelled with both the indies' gold? Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll'd, and all the glory of that starry place?"

"What sweet delight a quiet life affords."