Great Throughts Treasury

"We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none."

"We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticizes us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him."

"What more wretched than the man who is the slave of his own imaginings?"

"When I want to judge someone, I ask him how satisfied he is with himself, to what extent he is pleased with his words or his work."

"A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection."

"A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it though a funnel, but induce him to think, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and so accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil."

"All philosophy is divided into these three types. Its purpose is to seek out truth, knowledge and certainty."

"Being is something we hold dear, and being consists in movement and action. Wherefore each man in some sort exists in his work."

"A victory is no victory unless it put an end to the war."

"All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim."

"A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can."

"All the wisdom and discourse of the world turns in the end upon this point, to teach us not to fear to die."

"Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be."

"Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, which deserves that we employ in its pursuit not only time, sweat, trouble, and worldly goods, but even life; inasmuch as without it life comes to be painful and oppressive to us. Pleasure, wisdom, knowledge, and virtue, without it, grow tarnished and vanish away."

"I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so."

"In all things except those that are simply bad, change is to be feared: change of seasons, winds, food, and humors. And no laws are held in their true honor except those to which God has given some ancient duration, so that no one knows their origin or that they were ever different."

"It is harder to keep money than to get it."

"It is not the last step that causes weariness: it only declares it."

"It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation of freedom. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint. There is nothing evil in life for the man who has thoroughly grasped the fact that to be deprived of life is not an evil."

"It takes a lot of self-love and presumption to have such esteem for one’s own opinions that to establish them one must overthrow the public peace and introduce so many inevitable evils, and such a horrible corruption of morals, as civil wars and political changes bring with them in a matter of such weight - and introduce them into one’s own country."

"Leave a little to nature: she understands her business better than we do."

"Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do."

"Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind."

"Many things seem greater by imagination than be effect."

"My trade and art is to live."

"Not in theory, but in truth, the best and most excellent government for each nation is the one under which it has preserved its existence. Its form and essential fitness depend on habit. We are prone to be discontented with the present state of things. But I maintain, nevertheless, that to wish for the government of a few in a democratic state, or another type of government in a monarchy, is foolish and wrong."

"Philosophy is doubt."

"Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of mind is irreparable."

"Satiety comes of too frequent repetition; and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking."

"Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in the art of conversation."

"The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things."

"The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live [to] with a purpose."

"The greatest thing in the world, is for a man to know how to be [oneself] his own [self-sufficient]."

"The highest wisdom [most manifest sign of wisdom] is continual cheerfulness; such a state, like the region above the moon, is always clear and serene."

"The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom... It may be said with some plausibility that there is an abecedarian (meaning alphabetically or rudimentary) ignorance that comes before knowledge, and another doctoral ignorance that comes after knowledge; ignorance that knowledge creates and engenders, just as it undoes and destroys the first."

"The man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears."

"The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not discreetly how to use it."

"The only good histories are those that have been written by the very men who were in command in the affairs, or who were participants in the conduct of them or who at least have had the fortune to conduct others of the same sort... What can you expect of a doctor discussing war, or a schoolboy discussing the intentions of princes?"

"The remembrance of pleasure doubles our pain."

"There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves."

"There are few men who dare publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God."

"There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees."

"There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life."

"There is no passion so contagious as that of fear."

"There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity."

"There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity."

"Those who give the first shock to a state are naturally the first to be overwhelmed in its ruin. The fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by the man who was the first to set it a going; he only troubles the water for another’s net."

"Time is money."

"Undertake coldly, but pursue hotly."

"Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has not a spot at home where he can be at home to himself - to court himself and hide away."