Great Throughts Treasury

"As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor."

"Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct."

"As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is with traveling. A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge."

"At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest."

"Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust. The malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may apply to every other course of life - that its two days of happiness are the first and the last."

"Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse."

"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives."

"Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels but they live like men."

"Before dinner, men meet with great inequality of understanding, and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk: when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects."

"Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

"Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise."

"Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all."

"Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them."

"Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them."

"Books (says Bacon) can never teach the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to suppose he can receive but little light from books, nor so meanly as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them."

"Books that you may carry to the fireside, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."

"Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed."

"Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen."

"But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold, Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold."

"Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing."

"But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

"But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa?tions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them."

"But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words."

"Buying, possessing, accumulating, this is not worldliness. - But doing this in the love of it, with no love to God paramount - doing it so that thoughts of God and eternity are an intrusion - doing it so that one's spirit is secularized in doing it - this is worldliness."

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show."

"By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

"Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells."

"Clear your mind of can't."

"Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world."

"Community of possession must include spontaneity of production ; for what is obtained by labor will be of right the property of him by whose labor it is gained."

"Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practiced perfidy grow faithless to each other."

"Club: An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions."

"Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!"

"Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom."

"Controversies merely speculative are of small importance in themselves, however they may have sometimes heated a disputant, or provoked a faction"

"Conjecture as to things useful is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, such as whether men ever went upon all-fours, is very idle."

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others."

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

"Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption"

"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense."

"Cunning has effect from the credulity of others. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive."

"Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well."

"Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last."

"Dead counselors are the most instructive, because they are heard with patience and reverence."

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects and produces new incitements to further progress."

"Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it."

"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

"Despair is criminal."