Great Throughts Treasury

"The best men are not consistent in good-- why should the worst men be consistent in evil."

"The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time."

"The doctors had no immediate fear of his death. He proved the doctors to be mistaken, and took the liberty of dying at a time when they all declared that there was every hope of his recovery."

"The doctor who is not honest enough to confess it when he is puzzled, is a well-known member of the medical profession in all countries."

"The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare."

"The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public -- a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization -- which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad."

"The fool's crime is the crime that is found out and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out."

"The grand secret, in dealing with a woman, is to take her as you take a cat, by the scruff of the neck."

"The hardest disease to cure that I know of is - worry."

"The grandest mountain prospect that the eye can range over is appointed to annihilation. The smallest human interest that the pure heart can feel is appointed to immortality."

"The horrid mystery hanging over us in this house gets into my head like liquor, and makes me wild."

"The greatest of all virtues is - Patience."

"The man who has worked in the full fervor of composition yesterday is the same man who sits in severe and merciless judgment to-day on what he has himself produced."

"The law will argue anything, with anybody who will pay the law for the use of its brains and its time."

"The woman I fixed my eye on, was the woman who kept house for me at my cottage. Her name was Selina Goby. I agree with the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one reason for marrying her."

"The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared. Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realize. The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls."

"The worst curse of human life is the detestable necessity of taking exercise."

"There are few higher, better, or more profitable enjoyments in this world than reading a good novel."

"There are foolish criminals who are discovered, and wise criminals who escape. The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other. When the criminal is a brutal, ignorant fool, the police, in nine cases out of ten, win. When the criminal is a resolute, educated, highly-intelligent man, the police, in nine cases out of ten, lose."

"There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at wist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment."

"The medical profession thrives on two incurable diseases in these modern days - a He-disease and a She-disease. She disease - nervous depression; He-disease - suppressed gout. Remedies, one guinea if you go to the doctor; two guineas if the doctor goes to you."

"The men who rise in the law are the men who decline to take No for an answer."

"The present time is the precious time. Live for the passing day: the passing day is all we can be sure of."

"The small pulse of the life within me and the great heart of th city around me seemed to be sinking in unison."

"There is nothing serious in mortality! Solomon in all his glory was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace."

"This is a miserable world, says the Sergeant. Human life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target—misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark."

"This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."

"Time possesses nothing but the negative virtue of helping to wear itself out."

"Time, animals, and buildings wear out with years, and submit to their hard lot. Time only meets with flat contradiction when he ventures to tell a woman that she is growing old."

"Well may your heart believe the truths I tell 'Tis virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell."

"We had our breakfasts--whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast."

"True remorse depends, to my mind, on a man's accurate knowledge of his own motives."

"Vanity wants nothing but the motive power to develop into absolute wickedness."

"We neither know nor judge ourselves; others may judge, but cannot know us. God alone judges and knows us."

"When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn't their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it's the fault of the fools who humor them."

"What right has anyone to be rich?"

"Whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast."

"When Gott made the womens, he was sorry afterwards for the poor mens--and he made tobaccos to comfort them."

"When there's a rash thing to be done by a man and a woman together, sir, philosophers have remarked that it's always the woman who leads the way."

"When two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two first meet. The sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them on either side."

"Women can resist a man's love, a man's fame, a man's personal appearance, and a man's money, but they cannot resist a man's tongue when he knows how to talk to them."

"When you say No to a Woman, Sir, always say it in one word. If you give her reasons, she invariably believes that you mean Yes."

"Yes! the books - the generous friends who met me without suspicion - the merciful masters who never used me ill! The only years of my life that I can look back on with something like pride... Early and late, through the long winter nights and the quiet summer days, I drank at the fountain of knowledge, and never wearied of the draught."

"You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years—generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco—and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad—ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice—ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much—ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain."

"Where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image that has been once fixed in it by a true love? Books tell us that such unearthly creatures have existed - but what does our own experiences say in answer to books?"

"Your tears come easy, when you're young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving it. I burst out crying."

"You are one of the most remarkable women England - you have never written a novel."

"You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably. Here is an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others. In the meantime, I will go on with my story."