Great Throughts Treasury

"Severity is often Clemency, Clemency Severity."

"Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but because it is hurtful."

"Slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature."

"Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him."

"Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste."

"Teach your child to hold his tongue; he'll learn fast enough to speak."

"The busy man has few idle visitors; to the boiling pot the flies come not."

"The doors of Wisdom are never shut."

"The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture."

"The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, hear much, always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as we possibly can; to hearken to what is said, and to answer to the purpose."

"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of wise man is in his heart."

"The honest man pains, and then enjoys pleasures, the knave takes pleasure, and then suffers pain."

"The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money."

"The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time or money, but make the best use of both Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; and with them, everything."

"There are no gains without pains."

"There are no ugly loves nor handsome prisons."

"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier."

"There is none deceived but he that trusts."

"There was never a good war or a bad peace."

"Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible."

"To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals."

"Waste not, want not; willful waste makes woeful want."

"Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it."

"Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have is a second edition to correct some faults of the first."

"What is best for the people is what they do for themselves."

"Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting,"

"Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion."

"Who pleasure gives, shall joy receive."

"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors."

"Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow."

"`Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."

"[Upon waking] What shall I do today? [Before going to sleep] What good have I done today?"

"[The] great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by the false estimates they have made of the value of things, and by their giving too much for their whistles."

"Anger is never without a Reason."

"Diligence overcomes Difficulties: Sloth makes them."

"Do'st thou love life, then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of."

"Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine."

"Good Sense is a Thing all need, few have, and none they [lack]."

"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."

"A full Belly makes a dull Brain."

"An honest Man will receive neither Money nor Praise, that is not his Due."

"He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines."

"I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business."

"If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion, what would they be if without it?"

"If your riches are yours, why don’t you take them with you to t’other world?"

"Is not hope of being one day able to purchase and enjoy luxuries a great spur to labor and industry? May not luxury, therefore, produce more than it consumes, if without such a spur people would be, as they are naturally enough inclined to be, lazy and indolent?"

"Let thy discontents be thy secrets."

"Most people return small Favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with Ingratitude."

"Nothing is more fatal to health than an overcare of it."