Great Throughts Treasury

"Happy the poet who with ease can steer from grave to gay, from lively to severe."

"He [MoliŠre] pleases all the world, but cannot please himself."

"He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write [or paint or sculpt, etc.]."

"Honor is like a steep island without a shore: one cannot return once one is outside."

"However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him."

"Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return."

"Ignorance is always ready to admire itself,"

"Let a single complete action, in one place and one day, keep the theatre packed to the last."

"If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure."

"I can call nothing by name if that is not his name. I call a cat a cat, and Rollet a rogue."

"It is in vain a daring author thinks of attaining to the heights of Parnassus if he does not feel the secret influence of heaven and if his natal star has not formed him to be a poet."

"No one is satisfied with his fortune, nor dissatisfied with his intellect."

"Let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."

"Of all the animals which fly in the air, walk on the land, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan to Rome, the most foolish animal in my opinion is man."

"Now two punctilious envoys, Thine and Mine Embroil the earth about a fancied line; And, dwelling much on right and much on wrong, Prove how the right is chiefly with the strong."

"Of all the creatures that creep, swim, or fly, peopling the earth, the waters, and the sky, from Rome to Iceland, Paris to Japan, I really think the greatest fool is man."

"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory."

"Silence is the understanding of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise."

"Of every four words I write, I strike out three."

"There is but one road to lead us to God - humility; all other ways would only lead astray, even were they fenced in with all virtues."

"Trouble rides behind and gallops with him."

"Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly."

"Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion."

"The terrible burden of having nothing to do."

"Though you be sprung in direct line from Hercules, if you show a lowborn meanness, that long succession of ancestors whom you disgrace are so many witnesses against you; and this grand display of their tarnished glory but serves to make your ignominy more evident."

"What is conceived well is expressed clearly."

"What is well conceived is clearly said."

"Whatever we conceive well we express clearly."