Great Throughts Treasury

"Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherent; genius, being the action of reason and imagination, rarely or never."

"That dances as often as dance it can."

"Talk of the devil, and his horns appear."

"Taste is the intermediate faculty which connects the active with the passive powers of our nature, the intellect with the senses; and its appointed function is to elevate the images of the latter, while it realizes the ideas of the former."

"That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense."

"That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

"The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer."

"That only can with propriety be styled refinement which, by strengthening the intellect, purifies the manners."

"That he, who many a year, with toil of breath."

"The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, just as a day or two after a thorough Debauch and long sustained Drinking-match a man feels all over like a Bruise. Even to admire otherwise than on the whole and where "I admire" is but a synonyme for "I remember, I liked it very much when I was reading it," is too much an effort, would be too disquieting an emotion!"

"That saints will aid if men will call; For the blue sky bends over all!"

"The blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook, Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not."

"The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive."

"The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -"

"The best amusement for our morning meal."

"The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols."

"The attempts to explain the nature of Life, which have fallen within my knowledge, presuppose the arbitrary division of all that surrounds us into things with life, and things without life?a division grounded on a mere assumption. At the best, it can be regarded only as a hasty deduction from the first superficial notices of the objects that surround us, sufficient, perhaps, for the purpose of ordinary discrimination, but far too indeterminate and diffluent to be taken unexamined by the philosophic inquirer."

"The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself."

"The curiosity of an honorable mind willingly rests there, where the love of truth does not urge it farther onward, and the love of its neighbor bids it stop; in other words, it willingly stops at the point where the interests of truth do not beckon it onward, and charity cries, Halt!"

"The doing an evil to avoid an evil cannot be good."

"The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast."

"The bride hath paced into the hall, Red as a rose is she."

"The constituent forces of life in the human living body are?first, the power of length, or REPRODUCTION; second, the power of surface (that is, length and breadth), or IRRITABILITY; third, the power of depth, or SENSIBILITY."

"The devil is not, indeed, perfectly humorous, but that is only because he is the extreme of all humor."

"The Eighth Commandment was not made for bards"

"The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on."

"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free; we were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea."

"The Earth with its scarred face is the symbol of the Past; the Air and Heaven, of Futurity."

"The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space."

"The faults of great authors are generally excellences carried to an excess."

"The fastidious taste will find offence in the occasional vulgarisms, or what we now call slang, which not a few of our writers seem to have affected."

"The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments, and sympathizes with their just feelings"

"The first great requisite is absolute sincerity. Falsehood and disguise are miseries and misery-makers."

"The frost performs its secret ministry, unhelped by any wind."

"The form of truth will bear exposure, as well as that of beauty herself."

"The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humor and so little wit in their literature."

"The Good consists in the congruity of a thing with the laws of the reason and the nature of the will, and in its fitness to determine the latter to actualize the former: and it is always discursive. The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive."

"The game is done! I've won, I've won! Quoth she, and whistles thrice."

"The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimal of pleasurable and genial feeling."

"The guests are met, the feast is set. May'st hear the merry din."

"The happiness of life is made ??of infinitesimal fractions: small alms, soon forgotten, a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a compliment done with the heart."

"The heart should have fed upon the truth, as insects on a leaf, till it be tinged with the color, and show its food in every ... minutest fiber."

"The heart's self-solace and soliloquy. You mold my hopes, you fashion me within."

"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd, Like noises in a swound!"

"The imagination ? that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in images of the sense and organizing (as it were) the flux of the senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths of which they are the conductors."

"The holiest thing alive."

"The juggle of sophistry consists, for the most part, in using a word in one sense in all the premises, and in another sense in the conclusion."

"The history of man for the nine months preceding his birth would, probably, be far more interesting and contain events of greater moment than all the three score and ten years that follow it."

"The Knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust; - His soul is with the saints, I trust."

"The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up; for possibly, they say, the name of God may be on it. Though there was a little superstition in this, yet truly there is nothing but good religion in it, if we apply it to men. Trample not on any; there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on."