Great Throughts Treasury

"Entertaining angels unawares: It is always we who are to entertain the angels, and never they us. I cannot, however, think that an angel would be a very entertaining person, either as guest or host."

"Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him."

"Everyone is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy -- so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius."

"Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it-torn up to irrecoverable tatters."

"Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again."

"Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint."

"Faith is a kind of betting, or speculation."

"Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by taking pains."

"Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it."

"Fools for arguments use wagers."

"For all a rhetorician's rules teach nothing but to name his tools."

"For blocks are better cleft with wedges,"

"For every why he had a wherefore."

"For he by geometric scale Could take the size of pots of ale."

"For Justice, though she's painted blind, Is to the weaker side inclin'd."

"For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure - tangible material prosperity in this world - is the safest test of virtue. Progress has ever been through the pleasures rather than through the extreme sharp virtues, and the most virtuous have leaned to excess rather than to ascetism."

"For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope."

"For rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which like ships they steer their courses."

"For those that fly may fight again, Which he can never do that 's slain."

"For those that run away and fly, take place at least o' the enemy."

"For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine."

"For wealth are all things that conduce, to one's destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell."

"For what is worth in anything but so much money as 't will bring?"

"Foundations of morality are like all other foundations; if you dig too much about them, the superstructure will come tumbling down."

"Genius is no respecter of time, trouble, money or persons, the four things around which human affairs turn most persistently."

"Genius ... has been defined as a supreme capacity for taking trouble... It might be more fitly described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains."

"Genius has been defined as a supreme capacity for taking trouble...It might be more fitly described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains."

"Genius is a nuisance, and it is the duty of schools and colleges to abate it by setting genius-traps in its way."

"Genius is a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble."

"God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor."

"God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch."

"God cannot alter the past, but [though] historians can."

"God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good."

"God is Love, I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is."

"God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal."

"God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion."

"Going away, I can generally bear the separation, but I don't like the leave-taking."

"Handel and Shakespeare have left us the best that any have left us; yet, in spite of this, how much of their lives was wasted."

"Have always been at daggers-drawing, And one another clapper-clawing."

"He [the Philosopher] should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin of his teeth, for the skin of one's teeth is the most teaching thing about one. He should have been, or at any rate believed himself, a great fool and a great criminal. He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet not be without society."

"He could distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and southwest side."

"He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us."

"He knew what 's what, and that 's as high As metaphysic wit can fly."

"He made an instrument to know If the moon shine at full or no."

"He ne'er consider'd it, as loth To look a gift-horse in the mouth."

"He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still."

"He that is down can fall no lower."

"He who would propagate an opinion must begin by making sure of his ground and holding it firmly. There is as little use in trying to breed from weak opinion as from other weak stock."

"Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of both."

"Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing where to stop in stealing, and how to make good use of what one does steal."