Great Throughts Treasury

"A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason."

"The lower a man descends in his love, the higher he lifts his life."

"The most terrible of all things is terror."

"There is one thing diviner than duty, namely, the bond of obligation transmuted into liberty."

"The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel; its poverty by how little."

"Aphorisms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling."

"Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom."

"Every man is his own greatest dupe."

"False eloquence is exaggeration, true eloquence is emphasis."

"Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the bad."

"Ignorance is the mother of suspicion."

"Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason."

"Public opinion is a second conscience."

"Public opinion is the atmosphere of society, without which the forces of the individual would collapse, and all the institutions of society fly into atoms."

"Reserve may be pride fortified in ice; dignity is worth reposing on truth."

"Tears are the tribute of humanity to its destiny."

"The eyes are the amulets of the mind."

"The flower that we do not pluck is the only one that never loses its beauty or its fragrance."

"To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim, requires a genius, a vital appropriating exercise of mind closely allied to that which first created it."

"True statesmanship is the art of changing a nation from what is into what it ought to be."

"He who is master of all opinions can never be the bigot of any."

"Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond districts of the mind."

"We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain."

"A gray eye is a sly eye, and roguish is a brown one; turn full upon me thy eye,? Ah, how its wavelets drown one! A blue eye is a true eye; mysterious is a dark one, which flashes like a spark-sun! A black eye is the best one."

"A thousand years a poor man watched before the gate of Paradise: but while one little nap he snatched, it oped and shut. Ah! was he wise?"

"After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is a solution, and the soul's indefeasible duty is to be of good cheer."

"A blue eye is a true eye; mysterious is a dark one, which flashes like a spark sun! A black eye is the best one."

"Fill up the goblet and reach to me some! Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum."

"God's mills grind slow, but they grind woe."

"He who has no wish to be happier is the happiest of men."

"Most men give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain."

"An Arab, by his earnest gaze, has clothed a lovely maid with blushes; a smile within his eyelids plays and into words his longing gushes."

"Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation which rises from the cup of mad impiety, and go, get drunk with that divine intoxication which is more sober far than all sobriety."

"Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth."

"As two floating planks meet and part on the sea, O friend! so I met and then drifted from thee."

"Of all the portions of life it is in the two twilights, childhood and age, that tears fall with the most frequency like the dew at dawn and eve."

"Romantic, Love, Words He who has no wish to be happier is the happiest of men."

"Smile, Good, Cheer Words of love, are works of love."

"Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as Saadi sings, but the immensest empire is too narrow for two kings."

"The best aphorisms are pointed expressions of the results of observation, experience, and reflection. They are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs."

"The moon is a silver pin-head vast, that holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast."

"In the nine heavens are eight Paradises; where is the ninth one? In the human breast. Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises, but blessedness dwells in the human breast."

"In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace whose inhabitants have the eternal release."

"When man seized the loadstone of science, the loadstar of superstition vanished in the clouds."

"With strength and patience all his grievous loads are borne, and from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn."

"Words of love, are works of love."

"What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny."

"The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire."