Great Throughts Treasury

"Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance."

"Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive, and little instructed, make good Christians."

"Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature."

"No man is a hero to his own valet."

"No noble thing can be done without risks."

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself."

"Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget."

"Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness."

"Of all human and long-existent beliefs concerning religion, that one seems to me to be most probable and most justifiable which recognizes God as a power incomprehensible, source and preserver of all things; all goodness, all perfection, receiving and accepting in good part the honor and reverence which human beings render him under whatever form, under whatever name, and in whatever manner it may be."

"Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being."

"Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul."

"Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them."

"Reason effaces other griefs and sorrows, but engenders those of repentance."

"Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee."

"Saying is one thing and doing is another."

"Simple minds, less curious, less well instructed, are made good Christians, and through reverence and obedience hold their simple belief and abide by their laws."

"Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head."

"Skepticism is more easily understood by asking "What do I know?""

"The children are now working as if I did not exist."

"The clatter of arms drowns the voice of law"

"The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One."

"The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say,"

"The memory represents to us not what we choose, but what it pleases."

"The only thing certain is nothing is certain."

"The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge."

"The secret of success in life is known only to those who have not succeeded."

"The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere is nowhere."

"The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage."

"The study of books is a languishing and feeble activity that gives no heat, whereas discussion teaches and exercises us at the same time."

"The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use you make of them; they have lived for a long time who has little lived. Whether you have lived enough depends not on the number of your years but on your will."

"There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline."

"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent."

"Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so."

"This world is a most holy Temple, into which man is brought there to behold Statues and Images, not wrought by mortal hands, but such as by the secret thought of God hath made sensible, as intelligible unto us."

"Those who have likened our life to a dream were more right, by chance, than they realized. We are awake while sleeping, and waking sleep."

"To philosophize is to doubt."

"Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him."

"Virtue has no need of limits."

"We are born to inquire into truth; it belongs to a greater to possess it."

"We believe nothing so firmly as what we least know."

"We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom."

"We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there."

"We must push against a door to find out whether it is bolted or not."

"We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void."

"What greater vanity can there be, than to go about by our proportions and conjectures to guess at God? And to govern both him, and the world according to our capacity and laws?"

"What I have learned bears no other fruit than to make me realize how much I still have to learn."

"Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough."

"Within the child lies the fate of the future."

"Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end."

"You have to study a great deal to know a little."