Great Throughts Treasury

"Hail, hallowed day, that binds a yoke on vice, gives rest to toil, proclaims God's holy truth, blesses the family, secures the state, prospers communities, nations exalts, pours life and light on earth, and points the way to heaven!"

"Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from Heaven, at our very doors."

"Give work rather than alms to the poor. The former drives out indolence, the latter industry."

"From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned."

"God is infinitely great in himself; we should recognize it in humble adoration: always good; we should acknowledge it by grateful thanksgiving: we have constant need of his blessings; it becomes us to ask them at his hand."

"He that is patient will persevere; and he that perseveres will often have occasion for, as well as trial of patience."

"Have a time and place for everything, and do everything in its time and place, and you will not only accomplish more, but have far more leisure than those who are always hurrying."

"Hell is truth seen too late—duty neglected in its season."

"He who can suppress a moment's anger may prevent a day of sorrow"

"He is one of the noblest conquerors who carries on a successful warfare against his own appetites and passions, and has them under wise and full control."

"He that never changes his opinion never corrects mistakes and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today."

"Have something to say; say it, and stop when you've done."

"He that is possessed with a prejudice is possessed with a devil, and one of the worst kinds of devils, for it shuts out the truth, and often leads to ruinous error."

"High aims form high characters, and great objects bring out great minds."

"He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by that very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. - He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness, and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection."

"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it."

"Honor thy parents, those that gave thee birth, and watched in tenderness thine earliest days, and trained thee up in youth, and loved in all. Honor, obey, and love them; it shall fill their souls with holy joy, and shall bring down God's richest blessing on thee; and in days to come, thy children, if they're given, shall honor thee, and fill thy life with peace."

"If riches are, as Bacon says, the baggage (" impedimenta ") of virtue, impeding its onward progress - poverty is famine in its commissary department, starving it into weakness for the great conflict of life."

"If rich men would remember that shrouds have no pockets, they would, while living, share their wealth with their children, and give for the good of others, and so know the highest pleasure wealth can give."

"If we are but fixed and resolute – bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled spectre ships, which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.""

"If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. One who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach."

"If we make God's will our law, then God's promise shall be our support and comfort, and we shall find every burden light, and every duty a joy."

"Imperfect knowledge is the parent of doubt: thorough and honest research dispels it."

"Indolence is the dry rot of even a good mind and a good character; the practical uselessness of both. - It is the waste of what might be a happy and useful life."

"In its influence on the soul, error has been compared to a magnet concealed near the ship's compass. - As in the latter case, the more favorable the winds, and the greater the diligence and skill in working the ship, the more rapidly will it be speeded on in a wrong course; and so in the former, the greater the struggle for safety, the more speedy the progress to ruin."

"It is not true that there are no enjoyments in the ways of sin; there are, many and various. - But the great and radical defect of them all is, that they are transitory and unsubstantial, at war with reason and conscience, and always leave a sting behind. We are hungry, and they offer us bread; but it is poisoned bread. We are thirsty, and they offer us drink; but it is from deadly fountains. They may and often do satisfy us for the moment; but it is death in the end. It is only the bread of heaven and the water of life that can so satisfy that we shall hunger no more and thirst no more forever."

"Law is often spoken of as uncertain; but the uncertainty is not so much in the law as in the evidence."

"Laws which are in advance of public sentiment are generally but a dead letter."

"It has been said that science is opposed to, and in conflict with revelation. But the history of the former shows that the greater its progress, and the more accurate its investigations and results, the more plainly it is seen not only not to clash with the latter, but in all things to confirm it. The very sciences from which objections have been brought against religion have, by their own progress, removed those objections, and in the end furnished full confirmation of the inspired Word of God."

"It was a beautiful and striking reply, given by one in affliction, who, when asked how it was that he bore it so well, replied, - "It lightens the stroke, I find, to draw near to Him who handles the rod.""

"Let your holidays be associated with great public events, and they may be the life of patriotism as well as a source of relaxation and personal employment."

"Liberality was formerly called honesty, as if to imply that unless we are liberal we are not honest, either toward God or man."

"Let your sermon grow out of your text, and aim only to develop and impress its thought. - Of a discourse that did not do this it was once wittily said, "If the text had the small-pox, the sermon would never catch it.""

"Looks are more expressive and reliable than words; they have a language which all understand, and language itself is to be interpreted by the look as well as tone with which it is uttered."

"Mere knowledge is comparatively worthless unless digested into practical wisdom and common sense as applied to the affairs of life."

"Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions."

"Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood."

"Much of the glory and sublimity of truth is connected with its mystery. - To understand everything we must be as God."

"Men sometimes affect to deny the depravity of our race; but it is as clearly taught in the lawyers' office and in courts of justice, as in the Bible itself. Every prison, and fetter, and scaffold, and bolt, and bar, and chain is evidence that man believes in the depravity of man."

"My books are my tools, and the greater their variety and perfection the greater the help to my literary work."

"Mystery is another name for our ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain."

"Nature and revelation are alike God's books; each may have mysteries, but in each there are plain practical lessons for everyday duty."

"Names, says an old maxim, are things. - They certainly are influences. - Impressions are left and opinions are shaped by them. - Virtue is disparaged, and vice countenanced, and so encouraged by them. The mean and selfish talk of their prudence and economy; the vain and proud prate about self-respect; obstinacy is called firmness, and dissipation the enjoyment of life; seriousness is ridiculed as cant, and strict morality and integrity, as needless scrupulosity; and so men deceive themselves, and society is led to look leniently, or with indifference, on what ought to be sharply condemned."

"Never be so brief as to become obscure."

"Newspapers are the world's cyclopaedia of life; telling us everything from every quarter of the globe. - They are a universal whispering gallery for mankind, only their whispers are sometimes thunders."

"Never borrow trouble. If the evil is not to come, it is useless, and so much waste; if it is to come, best keep all your strength to meet it."

"Of all our losses, those delay doth cause, are most and heaviest. - By it oft we lose the richest treasures, knowledge, wealth, and power, and oft, alas! the never dying soul. - The calls of God and duty we intend to hear, at some convenient season, which to us may never come. - And thus we madly waste probation, forfeit heaven, and heedless sink to endless death."

"No one can contemplate the great facts of astronomy without feeling his own littleness and the wonderful sweep of the power and providence of God."

"Of nineteen out of twenty things in children, take no special notice; but if, as to the twentieth, you give a direction or command, see that you are obeyed."

"One of the great lessons the fall of the leaf teaches, is this: do your work well and then be ready to depart when God shall call."