Great Throughts Treasury

"There are many times and circumstances in life when "Our strength is, to sit still.""

"The word "miser," so often used as expressive of one who is grossly covetous and saving, in its origin signifies one that is miserable, the very etymology of the word thus indicating the necessary unhappiness of the miser spirit."

"There are two kinds of charity, remedial and preventive. - The former is often injurious in its tendency; the latter is always praiseworthy and beneficial."

"There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. Like imprisoned steam, the more it is pressed the more it rises to resist the pressure. The more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish."

"Think as well as read, and when you read. Yield not your minds to the passive impressions which others may make upon them. Hear what they have to say; but examine it, weigh it, and judge for yourselves. This will enable you to make a right use of books - to use them as helpers, not as guides to your understanding; as counselors, not as dictators of what you are to think and believe."

"There is often as much independence in not being led as in not being driven"

"Think not rightly to examine yourself by looking only to your own inner motives and feelings, which are the hardest of all things to analyze if looked at in the abstract, and apart from outward actions. But ask, "Do I believe all that God teaches, and endeavor to do all that God commands?" For in this is the evidence of true love to him."

"Thoughts lead on to purpose, purpose leads on to actions, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny."

"Thoroughly to teach another is the best way to learn for yourself."

"This world is the land of the dying; the next is the land of the living."

"To live happily with other people, one should ask of them only what they can give."

"To be good, we must do good and by doing good we take a sure means of being good, as the use and exercise of the muscles increase their power."

"To possess money is very well; it may be a most valuable servant; to be possessed by it, is to be possessed by a devil, and one of the meanest and worst kind of devils."

"To murder character is as truly a crime as to murder the body: the tongue of the slanderer is brother to the dagger of the assassin."

"To rule one's anger is well; to prevent it is better."

"To say nothing of the divine law, on mere worldly grounds it is plain that nothing is more conducive to the health, intelligence, comfort, and independence of the working classes, and to our prosperity as a people, than our Sabbath."

"To rejoice in another's prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own."

"True art is reverent imitation of God."

"True conservatism is substantial progress; it holds fast what is true and good in order to advance in both. - recast away the old is not of necessity to obtain the new. - To reject anything that is valuable, lessens the power of gaining more. That a thing is new does not of course commend; that it is old does not discredit. The test question is, "Is it true or good?""

"True religion extends alike to the intellect and the heart. Intellect is in vain if it leads not to emotion, and emotion is vain if not enlightened by intellect; and both are vain if not guided by truth and leading to duty."

"To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully."

"Unbelief, in distinction from disbelief, is a confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. - "Agnostic" is but the Greek for "ignoramus.""

"We never do evil so thoroughly and heartily as when led to it by an honest but perverted, because mistaken, conscience."

"We never reach our ideals, whether of mental or moral improvement, but the thought of them shows us our deficiencies, and spurs us on to higher and better things."

"True humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit; it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us."

"We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living."

"What we gave, we have; what we spent, we had; what we left, we lost."

"We weep over the graves of infants and the little ones taken from us by death; but an early grave may be the shortest way to heaven."

"Where duty is plain delay is both foolish and hazardous; where it is not, delay may be both wisdom and safety."

"When a tradesman is about to weigh his goods, he first of all looks to his scales and sees that his weights are right. And so for all wise, or safe, or profitable self-examination, we are not to look to frames, or feelings, or to the conduct of others, but to God's word, which is the only true standard of decision."

"What we need in religion, is not new light, but new sight; not new paths, but new strength to walk in the old ones; not new duties, but new strength from on high to fulfill those that are plain before us."

"Whoever in prayer can say, Our Father, acknowledges and should feel the brotherhood of the whole race of mankind."

"Whatever our place allotted to us by Providence that for us is the post of honor and duty. God estimates us, not by the position we are in, but by the way in which we fill it."

"Words are both better and worse than thoughts; they express them, and add to them; they give them power for good or evil; they start them on an endless flight, for instruction and comfort and blessing, or for injury and sorrow and ruin."