Great Throughts Treasury

"Our censure of our fellowmen, which we are prone to think a proof of our superior wisdom, is too often only the evidence of the conceit that would magnify self, or of the malignity or envy that would detract from others."

"Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world."

"Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason they cannot be destroyed by logic."

"Preventives of evil are far better than remedies; cheaper and easier of application, and surer in result"

"Profanity is both an unreasonable and an unmanly sin, a violation alike of good taste and good morals; an offence against both man and God. - Some sins are productive of temporary profit or pleasure; but profaneness is productive of nothing unless it be shame on earth, and damnation in hell. It is the most gratuitous of all kinds of wickedness - a sort of pepper-corn acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the devil over those who indulge it."

"Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self and benevolence to men."

"Ridicule may be the evidence of wit or bitterness and may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but it is no test of reason or truth."

"Quiet and sincere sympathy is often the most welcome and efficient consolation to the afflicted. Said a wise man to one in deep sorrow, "I did not come to comfort you; God only can do that; but I did come to say how deeply and tenderly I feel for you in your affliction"."

"Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past - the best evidence of regret for them that we can offer, or the world receive."

"Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated."

"Sense, brevity, and point are the elements of a good proverb."

"Right actions in the future are the best explanations or apologies for wrong ones in the past; the best evidence of regret for them that we can offer, or the world receive."

"Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future."

"Some men are born old, and some men never seem so. If we keep well and cheerful, we are always young and at last die in youth even when in years would count as old."

"Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it; seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine."

"Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end."

"Sin with the multitude, and your responsibility and guilt are as great and as truly personal, as if you alone had done the wrong."

"Sincerity is no test of truth - no evidence of correctness of conduct. - You may take poison sincerely believing it the needed medicine, but will it save your life?"

"Some so speak in exaggerations and superlatives that we need to make a large discount from their statements before we can come at their real meaning."

"Some persons are exaggerators by temperament. - They do not mean untruth, but their feelings are strong, and their imaginations vivid, so that their statements are largely discounted by those of calm judgment and cooler temperament. - They do not realize that "we always weaken what we exaggerate.""

"Superstitions are, for the most part, but the shadows of great truths."

"Speculate not too much on the mysteries of truth or providence. - The effort to explain everything, sometimes may endanger faith. - Many things God reserves to himself, and many are reserved for the unfoldings of the future life."

"Temperance is to the body what religion is to the soul, the foundation and source of health and strength and peace."

"Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind."

"The best rules of rhetoric are, to speak intelligently; speak from the heart; have something to say; say it; and stop when you've done."

"The certainty of punishment, even more than its severity, is the preventive of crime."

"The benefit of proverbs, or maxims, is that they separate those who act on principle from those who act on impulse; and they lead to promptness and decision in acting. - Their value depends on four things: do they embody correct principles; are they on important subjects; what is the extent, and what the ease of their application?"

"The agrarian would divide all the property in the community equally among its members. - But if so divided today, industry on the one hand, and idleness on the other, would make it unequal on the morrow. - There is no agrarianism in the providence of God."

"The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong.-We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter."

"The devil has at least one good quality; that he will flee if we resist him. - Though cowardly in him, it is safety for us."

"The first evil choice or act is linked to the second; and each one to the one that follows, both by the tendency of our evil nature and by the power of habit, which holds us as by a destiny."

"The highest attainment, as well as enjoyment of the spiritual life, is to be able at all times and in all things to say, "Thy will be done.""

"The first step to improvement, whether mental, moral, or religious, is to know ourselves--our weakness, errors, deficiencies, and sins, that, by divine grace, we may overcome and turn from them all."

"The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others."

"The highest obedience in the spiritual life is to be able always, and in all things, to say, "Not my will, but thine be done.""

"The hunger and thirst of immortality is upon the human soul, filling it with aspirations and desires for higher and better things than the world can give. - We can never be fully satisfied but in God."

"The insane, for the most part, reason correctly, but from false principles, while they do not perceive that their premises are incorrect."

"The laws of nature are but the thoughts and agencies of God - the modes in which he works and carries out the designs of his providence and will."

"The leaves in autumn do not change color from the blighting touch of frost, but from the process of natural decay. - They fall when the fruit is ripened, and their work is done. - And their splendid coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man. And 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."

"The mortality of mankind is but a part of the process of living - a step on the way to immortality. - Dying, to the good man, is but a brief sleep, from which he wakes to a perfection and fullness of life in eternity."

"The most we can get out of life is its discipline for ourselves, and its usefulness for others."

"The object of punishment is three­fold: for just retribution; for the protection of society; for the reformation of the offender."

"The religion of the gospel has power, immense power, over mankind; direct and indirect, positive and negative, restraining and aggressive. Civilization, law, order, morality, the family, all that elevates woman, or blesses society, or gives peace to the nations, all these are the fruits of Christianity, the full power of which, even for this world, could never be appreciated till it should be taken away."

"The province of reason in matters of religion is the same as that of the eye in reference to the external world: not to create objects; nor to sit in judgment on the propriety of their existence, but simply to discern them just as they are."

"The philosophers, as Varro tells us, counted up three hundred and twenty answers to the question, "What is the supreme good?" How needful, then, is a divine revelation, to make plain what is the true end of our being."

"The prejudiced and obstinate man does not so much hold opinions, as his opinions hold him."

"The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds."

"The slanderer and the assassin differ only in the weapon they use; with the one it is the dagger, with the other the tongue. The former is worse that the latter, for the last only kills the body, while the other murders the reputation."

"The study of mathematics cultivates the reason; that of the languages, at the same time, the reason and the taste. The former gives grasp and power to the mind; the latter both power and flexibility. The former, by itself, would prepare us for a state of certainties, which nowhere exists; the latter, for a state of probabilities, which is that of common life. Each, by itself, does but an imperfect work: in the union of both, is the best discipline for the mind, and the best mental training for the world as it is."

"The religions we count false, may, for a time, have had their use; being, in their origin, faint, though misunderstood echoes of an early divine revelation, and also as Emerson says. "affirmations of the conscience, correcting the evil customs of their times.""