Great Throughts Treasury

"Outside books, we avoid colorful characters."

"People are reluctant to cite boredom as grounds for divorce."

"People believe that photographs are true and therefore cannot be art."

"People who abhor solitude may abhor company almost as much."

"Poor but happy is not a phrase invented by a poor person."

"Political correctness is driving machismo underground and recalling effeminacy from exile"

"Photography knows how to authenticate its misrepresentations."

"Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run."

"Pornography does not inspire violence, but you can break a leg trying to imitate it."

"Posterity - the forlorn child of nineteenth century optimism - grows ever harder to conceive."

"Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder."

"Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting."

"Promiscuity is like never reading past the first page. Monogamy is like reading the same book over and over."

"Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort."

"Radical historians now tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey."

"Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted."

"Readers transform a library from a mausoleum into many theaters."

"Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one?s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete"

"Reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are."

"Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts."

"Repetition comforts me for a time, then closes in."

"Regret for wasted time is more wasted time"

"Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness."

"Rereading, we find a new book."

"Reputation runs behind the current state of affairs."

"Romance is tempestuous. Love is calm."

"Seeing my malevolent face in the mirror, my benevolent soul shrinks back."

"Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth"

"Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered."

"Sacred or not, sacrifice is an ugly business"

"Self-reform is the only kind that works."

"Self-sacrifice usually contains an unspoken demand for payment."

"Self-righteousness is the most shameless slut of all."

"Self-blame usually has an undertone of self-congratulation"

"Self-pity makes people callous."

"Silence is the most intolerable of answers."

"Simplicity is a strict taskmaster."

"Sincerity: willingness to spend one's own money."

"Sloth, not ill-will, makes me unjust."

"Some loves are like a vice that has ceased to give pleasure."

"Sometimes I discover I have changed my mind because I have forgotten what I used to think."

"Suspicion is the beginning of wisdom, and of madness."

"The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul."

"Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out."

"Staid middle age loves the hurricane passions of opera."

"The best propaganda omits rather than invents."

"Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen."

"The body has a mind of its own."

"The discontented believe that their regrets are about the past."

"The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort."