Great Throughts Treasury

"I rose up at the dawn of day— ‘Get thee away! get thee away! Pray’st thou for riches? Away! away! This is the Throne of Mammon grey.’ Said I: This, sure, is very odd; I took it to be the Throne of God. For everything besides I have: It is only for riches that I can crave. I have mental joy, and mental health, And mental friends, and mental wealth; I’ve a wife I love, and that loves me; I’ve all but riches bodily. I am in God’s presence night and day, And He never turns His face away; The accuser of sins by my side doth stand, And he holds my money-bag in his hand. For my worldly things God makes him pay, And he’d pay for more if to him I would pray; And so you may do the worst you can do; Be assur’d, Mr. Devil, I won’t pray to you. Then if for riches I must not pray, God knows, I little of prayers need say; So, as a church is known by its steeple, If I pray it must be for other people. He says, if I do not worship him for a God, I shall eat coarser food, and go worse shod; So, as I don’t value such things as these, You must do, Mr. Devil, just as God please."

"The Worship of God - It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend. The man who permits you to injure him deserves your vengeance; He also will receive it. Go, Spectre! obey my most secret desire, Which thou knowest without my speaking. Go to these Friends of Righteousness, Tell them to obey their Humanities, and not pretend Holiness, When they are murderers. As far as my Hammer and Anvil permit, Go tell them that the Worship of God is honouring His gifts In other men, and loving the greatest men best, each according To his Genius, which is the Holy Ghost in Man: there is no other God than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity. He who envies or calumniates, which is murder and cruelty, Murders the Holy One. Go tell them this, and overthrow their cup, Their bread, their altar-table, their incense, and their oath, Their marriage and their baptism, their burial and consecration. I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts, but have only Made enemies; I never made friends but by spiritual gifts, By severe contentions of friendship, and the burning fire of thought. He who would see the Divinity must see Him in His Children, One first in friendship and love, then a Divine Family, and in the midst Jesus will appear. So he who wishes to see a Vision, a perfect Whole, Must see it in its Minute Particulars, organized; and not as thou, O Fiend of Righteousness, pretendest! thine is a disorganized And snowy cloud, brooder of tempests and destructive War. You smile with pomp and rigour, you talk of benevolence and virtue; I act with benevolence and virtue, and get murder’d time after time; You accumulate Particulars, and murder by analysing, that you May take the aggregate, and you call the aggregate Moral Law; And you call that swell’d and bloated Form a Minute Particular. But General Forms have their vitality in Particulars; and every Particular is a Man."

"Love to faults is always blind; Always is to joy inclin’d, Lawless, wing’d and unconfin’d, And breaks all chains from every mind. Deceit to secrecy confin’d, Lawful, cautious and refin’d; To anything but interest blind, And forges fetters for the mind."

"They said this mystery never shall cease: The priest promotes war, and the soldier peace. "

"There is a smile of love, And there is a smile of deceit, And there is a smile of smiles In which these two smiles meet. And there is a frown of hate, And there is a frown of disdain, And there is a frown of frowns Which you strive to forget in vain, For it sticks in the heart’s deep core And it sticks in the deep backbone— And no smile that ever was smil’d, But only one smile alone, That betwixt the cradle and grave It only once smil’d can be; And, when it once is smil’d, There’s an end to all misery. "

"Great men and fools do often me inspire; But the greater fool, the greater liar."

"If God dieth not for Man, and giveth not Himself Eternally for Man, Man could not exist; for Man is Love, As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death In the Divine Image; nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood.’ "

""What," it will be questioned, "when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?" "O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty!'""

"A dead body revenges not injuries."

"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."

"A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation."

"A little black thing among the snow crying 'weep, 'weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father and mother? Say? They are both gone up to the church to pray."

"A man can't soar too high, when he flies with his own wings."

"A man's worst enemies are those of his own house and family; and he who makes his law a curse, by his own law shall surely die."

"A petty sneaking thief I knew - o! Mr cr-, how do you do?"

"A robin redbreast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage. A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons shudders hell thro’ all its regions. A dog starv’d at his master’s gate predicts the ruin of the state. A horse misus’d upon the road calls to heaven for human blood. Each outcry of the hunted hare a fiber from the brain does tear."

"A robin redbreast in a cage puts all heaven in a rage. A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons shudders hell thro' all its regions. A dog starv'd at his master's gate predicts the ruin of the state. A horse misused upon the road calls to heaven for human blood. Each outcry of the hunted hare a fibre from the brain does tear. A skylark wounded in the wing, a cherubim does cease to sing. The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight does the rising sun affright. Every wolf's and lion's howl raises from hell a human soul."

"A skylark wounded in the wing, a cherubim does cease to sing."

"Active Evil is better than Passive Good."

"Acts themselves alone are history, and these are neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire, Echardt, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the acts, o historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading."

"Acts themselves alone are history.... Tell me the acts, o historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish! All that is not action is not worth reading."

"Ages are all equal. But genius is always above the age."

"Ah! Gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,"

"All futurity seems teeming with endless destruction never to be repelled; Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage."

"All pictures that's painted with sense and with thought Are painted by madmen as sure as a groat; For the greater the fool in the pencil more blest, And when they are drunk they always paint best."

"All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap."

"Am not I a fly like thee? Or art not thou a man like me?"

"And all must love the human form, in heathen, Turk, or Jew. Where mercy, love, and pity dwell there God is dwelling too."

"And because I am happy, and dance and sing, they think they have done me no injury, and are gone to praise God and his priest and king, who make up a heaven of our misery."

"And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among these dark satanic mills? Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire, bring me my spear—o clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land."

"And eternity in an hour."

"And father, how can I love you or any of my brothers more? I love you like the little bird that picks up crumbs around the door."

"And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice."

"And I made a rural pen, And I stained the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every Child may joy to hear."

"And I saw it was filled with graves, and tomb-stones where flowers should be; and priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, and binding with briars my joys and desires."

"And I watered it in fears, night and morning with my tears; and I sunned it with smiles, and with soft deceitful wiles."

"And if the babe is born a boy he's given to a woman old, who nails him down upon a rock catches his shrieks in cups of gold."

"And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification?"

"And is made up of contradiction."

"And now the time returns again: Our souls exult, and London's towers Receive the Lamb of God to dwell in England's green and pleasant bowers."

"And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briars my joys and desires."

"And she grows young as he grows old."

"And the angel told tom if he'd be a good boy, he'd have God for his father and never want joy. And so tom awoke and we rose in the dark and got with our bags and our brushes to work. Tho' the morning was cold, tom was happy and warm, so if all do their duty, they need not fear harm."

"And the gates of this chapel were shut, and `thou shalt not' writ over the door."

"And there the lion's ruddy eyes shall flow with tears of gold, and pitying the tender cries, and walking round the fold, saying: "wrath by his meekness, and by his health, sickness, is driven away from our immortal day.""

"And throughout all eternity I forgive you, you forgive me."

"And we are put on earth a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love."

"Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed."

"Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death."

"Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death. God is."