Great Throughts Treasury

"It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become the very foremost badge of modern civilization--the Urim and Thummim of respectability. . . . So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, that we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really well-conditioned umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise."

"It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face."

"It is not much for its beauty that makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle, something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit."

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men?s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit."

"It is nothing to get wet; but the misery of these individual pricks of cold all over my body at the same instant of time made me flail the water with my paddle like a madman."

"It is one of the worst things of sentiment that the voice grows to be more important than the words, and the speaker than that what is spoken."

"It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it."

"It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire."

"It is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. Robinson Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilized mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with."

"It is the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged index of social position. . . . Crusoe was rather a moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an example of the civilized mind striving to express itself under adverse circumstances as we have ever met with."

"It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit."

"It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity."

"It is the season now to go about the country high and low, among the lilacs hand in hand, and two by two in fairyland."

"It may be argued again that dissatisfaction with our life's endeavor springs in some degree from dullness. We require higher tasks, because we do not recognize the height of those we have."

"It occurred to me as happens to so many of my fellow men, to choose the best and you do not have the strength to hold her calls."

"It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realized, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at night when we cannot sleep for the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil and clamor for ever. But this is a wile of the devil's. To the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like life in this ? that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses."

"It was a master surgeon, him that amputated me - out of college and all - Latin by the bucket, and what not; but he was hanged like a dog, and sun-dried like the rest, at Corso Castle."

"It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?"

"It was high time, for I now began to be tortured with thirst. The glow of the sun from above, its thousand-fold reflection from the waves, the sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt, combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache."

"It was in the month of May, 1813, that I was so unlucky as to fall into the hands of the enemy."

"It was not very long after this that there occurred the first of the mysterious events that rid us at last of the captain, though not, as you will see, of his affairs. It was a bitter cold winter, with long, hard frosts and heavy gales; and it was plain from the first that my poor father was little likely to see the spring. He sank daily, and my mother and I had all the inn upon our hands, and were kept busy enough without paying much regard to our unpleasant guest."

"It was not hard to become Mr. Hyde but it was difficult to become Jekyll again. Good and evil fought in my body. I had to make a decision."

"It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together?that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?"

"It was one January morning, very early?a pinching, frosty morning?the cove all grey with hoar-frost, the ripple lapping softly on the stones, the sun still low and only touching the hilltops and shining far to seaward."

"It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiostiy, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone."

"It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound togetherthat in the agonized womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then were they dissociated"

"It's a pleasant thing to be young, and have ten toes."

"It's an owercome sooth fo' age an' youth, and it brooks wi' nae denial, that the dearest friends are the auldest friends, and the young ones are just on trial."

"I've a grand memory for forgetting."

"Jekyll felt are much better that the interest of a father; Hyde far less than the indifference of a child."

"Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference."

"Jekyll to Hyde felt an interest rate higher than that fathers have for their children, while Hyde felt indifference towards him stronger than that children feel for their fathers."

"Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant."

"Just now, when everyone is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of lŠse-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party, who are content when they have enough."

"Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life."

"Lastly no woman should marry a teetotaler, or a man who does not smoke. It is not for nothing that this "ignoble tobagie" as Michelet calls it, spreads all over the world."

"Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers."

"Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul Of the capacious salad bowl."

"Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea, there I'll establish a city for me."

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand we'll."

"Like all men is distress, Gideon decided to do what Napoleon, what Shakespeare, what Alexander the Great would have done. There remained only the minor question, what is that?"

"Live for each second without hesitation."

"Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man for a mate, a man named Arrow."

"Look out for squalls when you find it, and you will readily believe how little taste I found."

"Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors; if it may not, give us strength to endure that which is to come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. We beseech of you this help and mercy for Christ's sake."

"Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take, and stab my spirit broad awake; or, Lord, if too obdurate I, choose Thou, before that spirit die, a piercing paid, a killing sin, and to my dead heart turn them in."

"Love- what is love? A great and aching heart; wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair."

"Make the most of the best and the least of the worst."

"Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but principally by catchwords; and the little rift between the sexes is astonishingly widened by simply teaching one set of catchwords to the girls and another to the boys."

"Man is not truly one, but truly two."