Great Throughts Treasury

"Magnanimity owes no account to prudence of its motives."

"Man never rises to great truths without enthusiasm."

"Men are willing to render service until they have the power."

"Men have big claims and small projects."

"Mediocre men sometimes fear great office, and when they do not aim at it, or when they refuse it, all that is to be concluded is that they are aware of their mediocrity."

"Men dissimulate their dearest, most constant and most virtuous inclination from weakness and a fear of being condemned."

"Men crowd into honorable careers without other vocation than their vanity, or at best their love of fame."

"Men are not to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it."

"Misers do not bite usually a lot of things."

"Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them."

"Neither ignorance is lack of spirit or knowledge is proof of genius."

"Moderation is weak mediocrity."

"Neither the gifts nor the blows of fortune equal those of nature."

"No man is weak by choice."

"Moderation of great men bound their vices."

"Most men are so closely confined to the orbit of their worldly station that they have not even the courage to escape it by their ideas; and if there are some whom speculating on great matters unfits for small ones, there are yet more who by constant handling of small matters have lost the very sense of what is great."

"Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless."

"Necessity relieves us from the embarrassment of choice."

"Necessity moderates more troubles than reason."

"Necessity embitters the evils which it cannot cure."

"Nature has given great men do, and let the other judge."

"Nobody feels like a proper fool, fool people to mind."

"Nobility is a legacy, like gold and diamonds."

"No one likes to be pitied for his faults (mistakes)."

"No one says in the morning: A day is soon past, let us wait for the night. On the contrary, in the evening we consider what we shall do the next day. We should be very sorry to spend even one day at the mercy of time and bores. … Who can be certain of spending an hour without being bored, if he takes no care to fill even that short period according to his pleasure. Yet what we cannot be certain of for an hour, we sometimes feel assured of for life, and say: If death is the end of everything, why give ourselves so much trouble? We are extremely foolish to make such a pother about the future—that is to say, we are extremely foolish not to entrust our destinies to chance, and to provide for the interval which lies between us and death."

"No one is more liable to make mistakes than the man who acts only on reflection."

"Nobody is more prone to mistakes than those who act only by reflection."

"Nobody can boast of never having been despised."

"Nobody wants to be complaining about his mistakes."

"Nothing but courage can guide life."

"Nothing endures but truth."

"Nothing great has mediocrity."

"Obscurity is the kingdom (realm) of error."

"One cannot be just if one is not humane."

"Of all pleasures the fruit of labor is the sweetest."

"One isn't amused long by the wit of someone else."

"Our actions are neither so good nor so vicious that our wills."

"One promises much, to avoid giving little."

"Originality is the supreme evidence of genius."

"Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself."

"Our errors and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good."

"Our opinion of others is not so variable as our opinion of ourselves."

"Passions have taught men passion."

"Patience is the art of hoping."

"Peace makes people happier and weaker men."

"Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank."

"Perspicuity is the frame-work of profound thoughts."

"Peace renders nations happier and men weaker."

"Person is not subject to more mistakes than those who act only by reflection."

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