Great Throughts Treasury

"The blessings of fortune are the lowest: the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health: but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind."

"The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure."

"The devil helps his servants for a season; but when they get into a pinch; he leaves them in the lurch."

"The fairest blossoms of pleasantry thrive best where the sun is not strong enough to scorch, nor the soil rank enough to corrupt."

"The heart of man looks fair, but when we come to lay any weight upon?t the ground is false under us."

"The just season of doing things must, be nicked, and all accidents improved."

"The lowest boor may laugh on being tickled, but a man must have intelligence to be amused by wit."

"The most insupportable of tyrants exclaim against the exercise of arbitrary power."

"The very soul of the slothful does effectually but lie drowsing in his body, and the whole man is totally given up to his senses."

"There are braying men in the world, as well as braying asses; for what is loud and senseless talking any other than away of braying?"

"There are those that make it a point of bravery to bid defiance to the oracles of divine revelation."

"There is no contending with necessity, and we should be very tender how we censure those that submit to it. It is one thing to be at liberty to do what we will, and another thing to be tied up to do what we must."

"There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point."

"There is no opposing brutal force to the stratagems of human reason."

"Though this may be play to you, 'T is death to us."

"'Tis not necessity, but opinion, that makes men miserable; and when we come to be fancy-sick, there's no cure."

"To be longing for this thing to-day and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture--how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant, wandering humor and opinion?"

"Unruly ambition is deaf, not only to the advice of friends, but to the counsels and monitions of reason itself."

"Upon the upshot, afflictions are the methods of a merciful Providence to force us upon the only means of settling matters right."

"We mistake the gratuitous blessings of heaven for the fruits of our own industry."

"We spend our days in deliberating, and we end them without coming to any resolve."

"What man in his right senses, that has wherewithal to live free, would make himself a slave for superfluities? What does that man want who has enough? Or what is he the better for abundance that can never be satisfied."

"What signifies the sound of words in prayer without the affection of the heart, and a sedulous application of the proper means that may naturally lead us to such an end?"

"Wickedness may prosper for a while, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them."