Great Throughts Treasury

"Gay, sprightly, land of mirth and social ease Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please."

"Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes."

"Good counsel rejected returns to enrich the givers bosom."

"Good people all, with one accord, Lament for Madame Blaize, Who never wanted a good word-- From those who spoke her praise."

"Gratified ambition, or irreparable calamity, may produce transient sensations of pleasure or distress. Those storms may discompose in proportion as they are strong, or the mind is pliant to their impression. But the soul, though at first lifted up by the event, is every day operated upon with diminished influence; and at length subsides into the level of its usual tranquility. Should some unexpected turn of fortune take thee from fetters, and place thee on a throne, exultation would be natural upon the change; but the temper, like the face, would soon resume its native serenity."

"Gratitude, on the contrary, is never conferred but where there have been previous endeavors to excite it; we consider it as a debt, and our spirits wear a load till we have discharged the obligation. Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt."

"Had we a privilege of calling up, by the power of memory, only such passages as were pleasing, unmixed with such as were disagreeable, we might then excite at pleasure an ideal happiness, perhaps more poignant than actual sensation. But this is not the case: the past is never represented without some disagreeable circumstances which tarnish all its beauty; the remembrance of an evil carries in it nothing agreeable, and to remember a good is always accompanied with regret. Thus we lose more than we gain by the remembrance."

"Gratitude and love are almost opposite affections: love is often an involuntary passion, placed upon our companions without our consent, and frequently conferred without our previous esteem. We love some men we know not why; our tenderness is naturally excited in all their concerns; we excuse their faults with the same indulgence and approve their virtues with the same applause with which we consider our own. While we entertain the passion, it pleases us, we cherish it with delight, and give it up with reluctance, and love for love is all the reward we expect or desire."

"He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack, for he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back."

"He speaks to a people not easily impressed with new ideas, extremely tenacious of the old; with difficulty warmed, and as slowly cooling again. How unsuited then to our national character is that species of poetry which rises upon us with unexpected flights! where we must hastily catch the thought, or it flies from us! and, in short, where the Reader must largely partake of the Poet?s enthusiasm in order to taste of his beauties!"

"He calls his extravagance, generosity; and his trusting everybody, universal benevolence."

"Handsome is that handsome does."

"He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all."

"He who seeks for applause only from without has all his happiness in another's keeping."

"He who fights and runs away may live to fight another day; but he who is battle slain can never rise to fight again."

"Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn."

"Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much; Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind."

"Heroes themselves had fallen behind! --Whene'er he went before."

"His ancestors have been more and more solicitous to keep up the breed of their dogs and horses than that of their children."

"His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain; The long remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast."

"His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve in every part, His pencil out faces, his manners are heart."

"His conduct still right, with his argument wrong."

"Homer is the first poet and beggar of note among the ancients; he was blind, and sung his ballads about the streets; but it is observed that his mouth was more frequently filled with verses than with bread. Plautus, the comic poet, was better off; he had two trades,?he was a poet for his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in order to gain a livelihood. Terence was a slave, and Boethius died in goal."

"Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill; Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still."

"How happy he who crowns in shades like these, a youth of labor with an age of ease."

"Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, adorns and cheers our way; And still, as darker grows the night, emits a lighter ray."

"How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."

"How then are the English more free (for more free they certainly are) than the people of any other country or under any other form of government whatever? Their freedom consists in their enjoying all the advantages of democracy with this superior prerogative borrowed from monarchy, that the severity of their laws may be relaxed without endangering the constitution."

"I am not for whining at the depravity of the times, or for endeavoring to paint a prospect more gloomy than in nature; but certain it is, no person who has travelled will contradict me when I aver that the lower orders of mankind in other countries testify, on every occasion, the profoundest awe of religion; while in England they are scarcely awakened into a sense of its duties, even in circumstances of the greatest distress."

"I armed her against the censure of the world, showed her that books were sweet un-reproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it."

"How wide the limits stand between a splendid and a happy land."

"I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well."

"I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same, fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future, his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool! Of fortitude able to stand unmoved at the bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking of a teacup: such is his character, which, considered in every light, is the very opposite of that which leads to riches."

"I chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but such qualities as would wear well."

"I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me."

"I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes."

"I have found by experience, that they who have spent all their lives in cities, contract not only effeminacy of habit, but of thinking."

"I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts."

"I have known many of those pretended champions for liberty in my time, yet do I not remember one that was not in his heart and in his family a tyrant."

"I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population."

"I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet never did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve little great men; all fancying themselves known to the rest of the world, and complimenting each other upon their extensive reputation."

"If we turn to France, we shall there find even stronger instances of the ingratitude of the public. Vaugelas, one of the politest writers and one of the honestest men of his time, was surnamed The Owl, from his being obliged to keep within all day, and venture out only by night, through fear of his creditors?."

"I?ll fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/Where wealth accumulates and men decay"

"If one wishes to become rich they must appear rich."

"If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness."

"If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."

"In a monarchical state, in which the constitution is strongest, the laws may be relaxed without danger; for though the people should be unanimous in their breach of any one in particular, yet still there is an effective power superior to the people, capable of enforcing obedience, whenever it may be proper to inculcate the law either towards the support or welfare of the community."

"I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon."

"In all my wanderings through this world of care, in all my griefs -- and God has given my share --I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; to husband out life's taper at the close, and keep the flame from wasting, by repose: I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill, around my fire an evening group to draw, and tell of all I felt, and all I saw; and, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, pants to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, here to return -- and die at home at last."

"In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit."