Great Throughts Treasury

"It is what we give up, not what we lay up, that adds to our lasting store."

"It is the nature of intellect to strive to improve in intellectual power."

"Liberality should be tempered with judgment, not with profuseness."

"Most people who commit a sin count on some personal benefit to be derived therefrom, but profanity has not even this excuse."

"Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace."

"Man, being not only a religious, but also a social being, requires for the promotion of his rational happiness religious institutions, which, while they give a proper direction to devotion, at the same time make a wise and profitable improvement of his social feelings."

"Ministers who threaten death and destruction employ weapons of weakness. Argument and kindness are alone effectual, flavored by the principles of Divine love."

"Mystery and innocence are not akin."

"Never be so brief as to become obscure."

"My lodging it is on the cold ground, and very hard is my fare, But that which troubles me most, is the unkindness of my dear."

"No one has a greater asset for his business than a man's pride in his work."

"No outward change need trouble him who is inwardly serene."

"No reproof or denunciation is so potent as the silent influence of a good example."

"O sin, how you paint your face! how you flatter us poor mortals on to death! You never appear to the sinner in your true character; you make fair promises, but you never fulfil one; your tongue is smoother than oil, but the poison of asps is under your lip!"

"Obedience sums up our entire duty."

"Obedience and resignation are our personal offerings upon the altar of duty."

"Obedience, as it regards the social relations, the laws of society, and the laws of nature and of nature's God, should commence at the cradle and end only at the tomb."

"Not the least misfortune in a prominent falsehood is the fact that tradition is apt to repeat it for truth."

"Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too dear."

"Positive in proportion to their ignorance."

"Our blessings are the least heeded, because the most common events of life."

"Pretension almost always overdoes the original, and hence exposes itself"

"Prosperity often presages adversity."

"Prosperity seems to be scarcely safe, unless it be mixed with a little adversity."

"Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit."

"Purity in person and in morals is true godliness."

"Some clergymen make a motto, instead of a theme, of their texts."

"Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is without sin that may cast the first stone."

"Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams."

"Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation."

"Reproof, especially as it relates to children, administered in all gentleness, will render the culprit not afraid, but ashamed to repeat the offence."

"The cloudy weather melts at length into beauty, and the brightest smiles of the heart are born of its tears."

"That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect."

"The goodness of God to mankind is no less evinced in the chastisement with which He corrects His children than in the smiles of His providence; for the Lord will not cast off forever, but though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies."

"The heavens and the earth, the woods and the wayside, teem with instruction and knowledge to the curious and thoughtful."

"The learning which makes us acquainted with ourselves, with the powers and faculties of the human mind, with divine truth, which is plainly revealed, with its power on the mind and heart, with the concatenations of cause and effect and to understand our everyday duty, which grows out of our wants and the wants of those about us, is learning of a better quality than that which only enables us to call things by different names, without giving us a knowledge of their qualities either for good or evil."

"The illumined record of celestial truth."

"The only infallible judge."

"The oppression of any people for opinion?s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important."

"Theory, from whatever source, is not perfect until it is reduced to practice."

"There are no such things as "best" in the world of individuals."

"The suspicion has always been the enemy of happiness."

"There is no doubt that religious fanatics have done more to prejudice the cause they affect to advocate than have its opponents."

"There is no such thing as "best" in the world of individuals."

"There is no immunity from the consequences of sin; punishment is swift and sure to one and all."

"Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue."

"Thy attributes, how endearing! How parental! All loving, all forgiving."

"Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden"

"There is one court whose ?findings? are incontrovertible, and whose sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast."

"Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere."