Great Throughts Treasury

"One should treat one's fate as one does one's health; enjoy it when it is good, be patient with it when it is poor, and never attempt any drastic cure save as an ultimate resort."

"One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him."

"Only the contemptible fear contempt."

"Only the great can afford to have great defects."

"Our actions are like the terminations of verses; which we rhyme as we please."

"Our actions seem to have their lucky and unlucky stars, to which a great part of that blame and that commendation is due which is given to the actions themselves."

"Our concern for the loss of our friends is not always from a sense of their worth, but rather of our own need of them and that we have lost some who had a good opinion of us."

"Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect."

"Our enemies approach nearer to truth in their judgments of us than we do ourselves."

"Our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves."

"Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy."

"Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous; our star, that of the public."

"Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence."

"Our probity is not less at the mercy of fortune than our property."

"Our virtues are commonly disguised vices."

"Passion often makes fools of the ablest men, and able men of the mow foolish."

"Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever."

"Passion often makes a madman of the cleverest man, and renders the greatest fools clever."

"Our wisdom is no less at fortune's mercy than our wealth."

"Passions are the only orators to always convinces us."

"Passion often makes fools of the wisest men and gives the silliest wisdom."

"Penetration or discernment has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind."

"People always complain about their memories, never about their minds."

"Penetration has a spice of divination in it which tickles our vanity more than any other quality of the mind."

"Penetration has an air of divination; it pleases our vanity more than any other quality of the mind."

"People that are conceited of their own merit take pride in being unfortunate, that themselves and others may think them considerable enough to be the envy and the mark of fortune."

"People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about."

"People who think they can live mean penance others lie to ourselves, but those who think other people cannot live without him be wrong again."

"Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference."

"People would not long remain in social life if they were not the dupes of each other."

"People's personalities, like buildings, have various facades, some pleasant to view, some not."

"Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching."

"Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting. People you know, yet can't quite name."

"Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on."

"Philosophy easily triumphs over past and future ills; but present ills triumph over philosophy."

"Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy."

"Philosophy finds it an easy matter to vanquish past and future evils, but the present are commonly too hard for it."

"Plenty of people despise money, but few know how to give it away."

"Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a worrisome malady."

"Politeness is a desire to be treated politely, and to be esteemed polite oneself."

"Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady."

"Plenty of people want to be pious, but no one yearns to be humble."

"Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay."

"Preserving your health by too strict a diet is a tedious illness."

"Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too."

"Reason alone is insufficient to make us enthusiastic in any matter."

"Raillery is more insupportable than wrong; because we have a right to resent injuries, but are ridiculous in being angry at a jest."

"Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much; yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirized can join in the satire."

"Quarrels would never last long if the fault was only on one side."

"Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, serves also to moderate it."