Great Throughts Treasury

"Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds"

"Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal: no one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you."

"Statesmen and beauties are a very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay."

"Style is the dress of thoughts."

"The main fact about education is that there is no such thing. Education is a word like "transmission" or "inheritance"; it is not an object, but a method."

"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves."

"The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe in anything else, are both insane."

"Talk often, but never long: in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers."

"The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of a superior genius."

"There are three classes of people in the world. The first learn from their own experience - these are wise; the second learn from the experiences of others - these are the happy; the third neither learn from their own experience nor the experience of others - these are fools."

"The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable. Every moment may be put to some use."

"There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing."

"There is no living in the world without a complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous, vanities."

"True contentment is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it."

"Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one."

"Vanity is the more odious and shocking to everybody, without exception, has vanity; and two vanities can never love one another."

"When you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him where that passion is concerned."

"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so."

"The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the closet."

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable."

"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day."

"Education, more than nature, is the cause of that great difference which we see in the characters of men."

"An absolute command of your temper, so as not to be provoked to passion, upon any account; patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications; with address enough to refuse, without offending, or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation; dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie; sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances; and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by your; a seeming frankness with a real reserve. There are the rudiments of a politician."

"To please people is a great step toward persuading them."

"People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority."

"Human nature is the same all over the world."

"We are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation. The great point is, to choose good models and to study them with care."

"Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so."

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

"Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible."

"Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked."

"The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in."

"Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable."

"Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health."