Great Throughts Treasury

"Primitive societies without religion have never been found."

"All civilization comes through literature now, especially in our country. A Greek got his civilization by talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian may still do it. But we, who live remote from history and monuments, we must read or we must barbarize."

"A man never sees all that his mother has been to him until it's too late to let her know that he sees it."

"An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise."

"And the names he loved to hear have been carved for many a year on the tomb."

"Clemens was sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature."

"Each one of us must suffer long to himself before he can learn that he is but one in a great community of wretchedness, which has been pitilessly repeating itself from the foundation of the world."

"Does it afflict you to find your books wearing out? I mean literally... the mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all."

"He had always said to himself that there could be no persistence of personality, of character, of identity, of consciousness, except through memory; yet here, to the last implication of temperament, they all persisted. The soul that was passing in its integrity through time without the helps, the crutches, of remembrance by which his own personality supported itself, why should not it pass so through eternity without that loss of identity which was equivalent to annihilation?"

"And before you know me gone Eternity and I are one."

"He kept up with the current literature, and distilled from it a polite essence, with which he knew how to perfume his conversation."

"He who sleeps in continual noise is wakened by silence"

"He was in love with his work, and he felt the enthusiasm for it which nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us."

"Her mouth is a honey-blossom, no doubt, as the poet sings; but within her lips, the petals, lurks a cruel bee that stings."

"How strange it (the earthquake) must all have seemed to them, here where they lived so safely always! They thought such a dreadful thing could happen to others, but not to them. That is the way!"

"I know, indeed, of nothing more subtle satisfying and cheering than a knowledge of the real good will and appreciation of others. Such happiness does not come with money, nor does it flow from a fine physical state. It cannot be bought. But it is the keenest joy, after all and the toiler's truest and best reward."

"If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank."

"How is it the great pieces of good luck fall to us?"

"If I were authorized to address any word directly to our novelists, I should say: Do not trouble yourself about standards or ideals, but try to be faithful and natural."

"I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.'"

"In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and... in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere."

"If he was not commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but through some combination of qualities of the heart that made men trust him, and women call him sweet--a word of theirs which conveys otherwise indefinable excellences."

"Is it worthwhile to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?"

"Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself."

"It is the still small voice that the soul heeds; not the deafening blasts of doom."

"Lord, for the erring thought not into evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept."

"Live all you can. It's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do — but live. This place makes it all come over me. I see it now. I haven't done so — and now I'm old. It's too late. It has gone past me — I've lost it. You have time. You are young. Live!"

"See how today's achievement is only tomorrow's confusion; See how possession always cheapens the thing that was precious."

"Now I know that so long as we have social inequality we shall have snobs; we shall have men who bully and truckle, and women who snub and crawl. I know that it is futile to, spurn them, or lash them for trying to get on in the world, and that the world is what it must be from the selfish motives which underlie our economic life."

"Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week."

"The conqueror is regarded with awe the wise man commands our respect but it is only the benevolent man that wins our affection"

"The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number."

"The book which you read from a sense of duty, or because for any reason you must, does not commonly make friends with you."

"The mortality of all inanimate things is terrible to me, but that of books most of all."

"The wrecks of slavery are fast growing a fungus crop of sentiment."

"The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple, is a far nobler property than the finest intellect."

"There will presently be no room in the world for things it will be filled up with the advertisements of things."

"Those novels with old-fashioned heroes and heroines in them -- are ruinous!"

"The whole business of love and lovemaking, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other elations of life."

"The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested."

"We are companions in hypocrisy."

"Tomorrow I shall be sixty-nine, but I do not seem to care. I did not start the affair, and I have not been consulted about it at any step."

"We are creatures of the moment we live from one little space to another, and only one interest at a time fills these."

"We live, but a world has passed away with the years that perished to make us men."

"What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending."

"Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart."

"Yes, people that have convictions are difficult. Fortunately, they're rare."

"With the years that perished to make us men."

"You'll find as you grow older that you weren't born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up."