Great Throughts Treasury

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

"Foolish people laugh at those readers a century ago who wept over the novels of Dickens. Is it a sign of superior intellect to read anything and everything unmoved, in a grey, unfeeling Limbo?"

"For them, in a time when the individual has lost significance (despite loud assertions to the contrary), an informed, rational, and intellectually adventurous individuality must take precedence over all else. In their seeming disunion lies their real strength."

"For twenty years I have been a writer and never before have I been in a milieu where every consideration came before literary consideration. And the opinion of anybody "

"Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it."

"Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond there of virtue."

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions."

"Genius is unquestionably a great trial, when it takes the romantic form, and genius and romance are so associated in the public mind that many people recognize no other kind. There are other forms of genius, of course, and though they create their own problems, they are not impossible people. But O, how deeply we should thank God for these impossible people like Berlioz and Dylan Thomas! What a weary, grey, well-ordered, polite, unendurable hell this would be without them!"

"Geordie wrote a letter to Mr. Webster in which the shrieking figure of Apology was hounded through a labyrinth of agonized syntax."

"Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most."

"Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary."

"Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. Writing about AIDS rather than the cocktail set, or possibly the fairy kingdom, will not guarantee importance. . . . The old comment that all periods of time are at an equal distance from eternity says much, and pondering on it will lead to alchemical theatre while relevance becomes old hat."

"Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance."

"Happiness is a by-product. It is not a primary product of life. It is a thing which you suddenly realize you have because you're so delighted to be doing something which perhaps has nothing whatever to do with happiness."

"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness."

"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling."

"Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty."

"Having me in the dining room was almost the equivalent of having a Raeburn on the walls; I was classy, I was heavily varnished, and I offended nobody."

"He [Jesus] had a terrible temper, you know, undoubtedly inherited from His Father."

"He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind."

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."

"He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind."

"He sets a thief to guard his purse Who trusts a dial with his hours Or bids a sand-glass bleed away his nights, His days, his loves, his pleasures and his powers. The burthen of his years Is Time's soft footfall, Time's soft Falling Through his joys and tears."

"He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage."

"He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless."

"He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them."

"He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions."

"He types his labored column -- weary drudge! Senile fudge and solemn: spare, editor, to condemn these dry leaves of his autumn."

"He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities."

"He was born into, and seems never to have questioned, that English class system which has been so much abused in the present century. Indeed, several governments have announced their intention of abolishing it, and the most recent prime minister to retire showed her egalitarian principles by accepting the title of Baroness Thatcher."

"He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great."

"He who becomes a beat of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove."

"He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"He who praises everybody, praises nobody."

"He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything."

"Hell is paved with good intentions."

"His face was tense with pain. But then, who notices when they meet a theatre critic whose face is tense with pain? It is one of the marks of the profession."

"His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises."

"Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment."

"Humor very often consists of shrewd perceptions about people. It's usually fun at someone's expense. Nowadays if you're funny at anybody's expense they run to the UN and say, I must have an ombudsman to protect me. You hardly dare have a shrewd perception about anybody."

"I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep the people from vice."

"I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations."

"I am constantly astonished by the people, otherwise intelligent, who think that anything so complex and delicate as a marriage can be left to take care of itself. One sees them fussing about all sorts of lesser concerns, apparently unaware that side by side with them "

"I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness."

"I am not even prepared to meet Professor Einstein or Bertrand Russell; why should I vaingloriously assume that God would find me interesting?"

"I am sure that I would not make a good taxidermist; the temptation to improve upon nature would certainly be too strong for me. Think how easy it would be, when stuffing somebody's pet terrier, to slip a couple of human glass eyes into sockets, instead of the usual buttons. Then the owner would really be justified in saying that his pet looked almost human. If I were stuffing this two-headed calf, for instance, I could not resist making one head smile and the other one frown, so that they looked like masks of Comedy and Tragedy."

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."

"I do not care to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I believe he is an attorney."