Great Throughts Treasury

"In all the losses of our friends, says an European philosopher, we first consider how much our own welfare is affected by their departure, and moderate our real grief just in the same proportion."

"In all the silent manliness of grief."

"In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, for even though vanquished he could argue still."

"In England, where there are as many new books published as in all the rest of Europe put together, a spirit of freedom and reason reigns among the people; they have been often known to act like fools, they are generally found to think like men?. An author may be considered as a merciful substitute to the legislature. He acts not by punishing crimes, but by preventing them."

"In fact, pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket; with others it may continue for twice that space; and on some of extraordinary sensibility I have seen it operate for half an hour together; but still, last as it may, it generally produces but beggarly effects; and where from this motive we give five farthings from others we give five pounds: whatever be your feelings from the first impulse of distress, when the same distress solicits a second time, we then feel with diminished sensibility; and, like the repetition of an echo, every stroke becomes weaker; till, at last, our sensations lose all mixture of sorrow, and degenerate into downright contempt."

"In history such stories alone should be laid before them as might catch the imagination; instead of this, they are too frequently obliged to toil through the four empires, as they are called, where their memories are burdened by a number of disgusting names, that destroy all their future relish for our best historians, who may be termed the truest teachers of wisdom."

"In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary. Savage rusticity is reclaimed by oral admonition alone; but the elegant excesses of refinement are best corrected by the still voice of a studious inquiry. In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the press than the pulpit. The preaching Bonse may instruct the illiterate peasant, but nothing less than the insinuating address of a fine writer can win its way to a heart already relaxed in all the effeminacy of refinement. Books are necessary to correct the vices of the polite, but those vices are ever changing, and the antidote should be changed accordingly, should still be new. Instead, therefore, of thinking the number of new publications here too great, I could wish it still greater, as they are the most useful instruments of reformation."

"In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach."

"In Spain, it is said, the great Cervantes died of hunger; and it is certain that the famous Camoens ended his days in a hospital."

"It is not easy to recover an art when once lost."

"It is usually said by grammarians that the use of language is to express our wants and desires; but men who know the world hold, and I think with some show of reason, that he who best knows how to keep his necessities private is the most likely person to have them redressed; and that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them."

"It is of no importance to read much except you be regular in reading. If it be interrupted for any considerable time, it can never be attended with proper improvement. There are some who study for one day with intense application, and repose themselves for ten days after. But wisdom is a coquet, and must be courted with un-abating assiduity. It was a saying of the ancients that a man never opens a book without reaping some advantage by it."

"It has been said that he who retires to solitude is either a beast or an angel; the censure is too severe, and the praise unmerited: the discontented being, who retires from society, is generally some good-natured man, who has begun his life without experience, and knew not how to gain it in his intercourse with mankind."

"It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them."

"It is the boast of an Englishman that his property is secure, and all the world will grant that a deliberate administration of justice is the best way to secure his property. Why have we so many lawyers, but to secure our property? Why so many formalities, but to secure our property? Not less than one hundred thousand families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by securing our property."

"It was a usual observation of Boyle the English chemist, that, if every artist would but discover what new observations occurred to him in the exercise of his trade, philosophy would thence gain innumerable improvements. It may be observed with still greater justice, that, if the useful knowledge of every country, howsoever barbarous, was gleaned by a judicious observer, the advantages would be inestimable."

"It was reckoned the fault of the orators at the decline of the Roman empire, when they had been long instructed by rhetoricians, that their periods were so harmonious as that they could be sung as well as spoken. What a ridiculous figure must one of these gentlemen cut, thus measuring syllables, and weighing words, when he should plead the cause of his client!"

"It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt."

"It will be perhaps objected, that by confining the excellences of a preacher to proper assurance, earnestness, and openness of style, I make the qualifications too trifling for estimation; there will be something called oratory brought up on this occasion; action, attitude, grace, elocution, may be repeated as absolutely necessary to complete the character: but let us not be deceived: common sense is seldom swayed by fine tones, musical periods, just attitudes, or the display of a white handkerchief; oratorial behavior, except in very able hands indeed, generally sinks into awkward and paltry affectation."

"Leans for all pleasure on another's breast."

"Justice may be defined, that virtue which impels us to give to every person what is his due. In this extended sense of the word, it comprehends the practice of every virtue which reason prescribes, or society should expect. Our duty to our Maker, to each other, and to ourselves, are fully answered if we give them what we owe them. Thus justice, properly speaking, is the only virtue; and all the rest have their origin in it."

"Let observation with observant view, Observe mankind from China to Peru."

"Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, with grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning."

"Like the bee, we should make our industry our amusement."

"Life at the greatest and best is but a forward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over."

"Man seems the only growth that dwindles here."

"Man has called in the friendly assistance of Philosophy, and Heaven, seeing the incapacity of that to console him, has given him the aid of Religion. The consolations of philosophy are very amusing, but often fallacious. It tells us that life is filled with comforts, if we will but enjoy them; and, on the other hand, that though we unavoidably have miseries here, life is short, and it will soon be over. Thus do those consolations destroy each other; for if life is a place of comfort, its shortness must be misery; and if it be long, our griefs are protracted. Thus philosophy is weak, but religion comforts in a higher strain. Man is here, it tells us, fitting up his mind, and preparing for another abode. To religion then we must hold in every circumstance of life, for our truest comforts: for if already we are happy it is a pleasure to think we can make that happiness unending; and if we are miserable, it is very consoling to think there is a place of rest. Thus to the fortunate religion holds out a continuance of bliss, to the wretched a change from pain."

"Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long."

"Little things are great to little men."

"Mankind in general are not sufficiently acquainted with the import of the word justice: it is commonly believed to consist only in a performance of those duties to which the laws of society can oblige us. This I allow is sometimes the import of the word, and in this sense justice is distinguished from equity; but there is a justice still more extensive, and which can be shown to embrace all the virtues united."

"Men complain of not finding a place of repose. They are in the wrong: they have it for seeking. What they should indeed complain of is, that the heart is an enemy to that very repose they seek. To themselves alone should they impute their discontent. They seek within the short span of life to satisfy a thousand desires, each of which alone is insatiable. One month passes, and another comes on; the year ends and then begins; but man is still unchanged in folly, still blindly continuing in prejudice."

"Measures, not men, have always been my mark."

"Mankind have ever been prone to expatiate on the praise of human nature. The dignity of man is a subject that has always been the favorite theme of humanity: they have declaimed with that ostentation which usually accompanies such as are sure of having a partial audience; they have obtained victories because there were none to oppose. Yet, from all I have ever read or seen, men appear more apt to err from having too high than by having too despicable an opinion of their nature; and by attempting to exalt their original place in the creation depress their real value in society."

"No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it."

"My lawyer tells me, returned he, that I have Salkeld and Ventris strong in my favour, and that there are no less than fifteen cases in point.?I understand, said I, those are two of your judges who have already declared their opinion.?Pardon me, replied my friend, Salkeld and Ventris are lawyers who some hundred years ago gave their opinions on cases similar to mine; these opinions which make for me my lawyer is to cite, and those opinions which look another way are cited by the lawyer employed by my antagonist: as I observed, I have Salkeld and Ventris for me, he has Coke and Hale for him, and he that has most opinions is most likely to carry his cause.?But where is the necessity, cried I, of prolonging a suit by citing the opinions and reports of others, since the same good sense which determined lawyers in former ages may serve to guide your judges at this day? They at that time gave their opinions only from the light of reason: your judges have the same light at present to direct them, let me even add a greater, as in former ages there were many prejudices from which the present is happily free. If arguing from authorities be exploded from every other branch of learning, why should it be particularly adhered to in this? I plainly foresee how such a method of investigation must embarrass every suit, and even perplex the student: ceremonies will be multiplied, formalities must increase, and more time will thus be spent in learning the arts of litigation than in the discovery of right."

"Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities."

"Misers have been described as madmen, who in the midst of abundance banish every pleasure, and make, from imaginary wants, real necessities. But very few correspond to this exaggerated picture. Instead of this, we find the sober and industrious branded by the vain and the idle with the odious appellation; men who, by frugality and labor, raise themselves above their equals, and contribute their share of industry to the common stock. Whatever the vain or the ignorant may say, well were it for society had we more of this character. In general, these close men are found at last the true benefactors of society. With an avaricious man we seldom lose in our dealings, but we too frequently do in our commerce with prodigality."

"Nothing can be better calculated to increase the price of silk than the present manner of dressing. A lady?s train is not bought but at some expense, and after it has swept the public walks for a very few evenings, is fit to be worn no longer; more silk must be bought in order to repair the breach, and some ladies of peculiar economy are thus found to patch up their tails eight or ten times in a season. This unnecessary consumption may introduce poverty here, but then we shall be the richer for it in China."

"Nobody with me at sea but myself."

"Of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest."

"Of all rewards, I grant, the most pleasing to a man of real merit is fame; but a polite age of all times is that in which scarcely any share of merit can acquire it. What numbers of fine writers in the latter empire of Rome, when refinement was carried to the highest pitch, have missed that fame and immortality which they had fondly arrogated to themselves! How many Greek authors, who wrote at the period when Constantinople was the refined mistress of the empire, now rest, either not printed, or not read, in the libraries of Europe! Those who came first, while either state as yet was barbarous, carried all the reputation away. Authors, as the age refined, became more numerous, and their numbers destroyed their fame. It is but natural, therefore, for the writer, when conscious that his works will not procure him fame hereafter, to endeavor to make them turn out to his temporal interest here."

"Nothing is so contemptible as that affectation of wisdom which some display by universal incredulity."

"O luxury! Thou curst of heaven's decree."

"Oh sir! I must not tell my age. They say women and music should never be dated."

"Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please."

"Of all the plants that cover the earth and lie like a fringe of hair upon the body of our grandmother, try to obtain knowledge that you may be strengthened in life"

"On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting 'twas only that when he was off, he was acting."

"One should not quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient to vindicate one through all the courts of morality."

"On whatever side we regard the history of Europe we shall perceive it to be a tissue of crimes, follies, and misfortunes, of politics without design, and wars without consequence."

"One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index."