Great Throughts Treasury

"Every failure is a step to success; every detection of what is false directs us toward what is true; every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so, but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, is the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of error is without some latent charm derived from truth." - William Whewell

"Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act. But a courageously positive act that makes you a new person." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"In an age remarkable for good reasoning and bad conduct, for sound rules and corrupt manners, when virtue fills our heads, but vice our hearts; when those who would fain persuade us that they are quite sure of heaven, appear in no greater hurry to go there than other folks, but put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst; in an age when modesty herself is more ashamed of detection than delinquency; when independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend; and free thinking, not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking; in an age when patriots will hold anything except their tongues; keep anything except their word; and lose nothing patiently except their character; to improve such an age must be difficult; to instruct it dangerous; and he stands no chance of amending it who cannot at the same time amuse it." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The biggest breakthrough in the next 50 years will be the discovery of extraterrestrial life. We have been searching for it for 50 years and found nothing. That proves life is rarer than we hoped, but does not prove that the universe is lifeless. We are only now developing the tools to make our searches efficient and far-reaching, as optical and radio detection and data processing move forward." - Freeman John Dyson

"I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry." - Learned Hand, fully Billings Learned Hand

"Early detection enables persons to benefit most from available medications that can help slow the progress of symptoms, and psychological and social interventions that can ease the journey for families. And it enables individuals to exercise self-determination related to future care, and legal and financial issues." - Richard Powers

"I should be very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush are, I think, all that we need." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"Our duty is to act upon things as they are, and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be." - Thomas Jefferson

"There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine; they can't play at wist; and they can't pay a lady a compliment." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins