Great Throughts Treasury

"The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." - Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch

"Most people work for the greater part of their time for a mere living; and the little freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every means of getting rid of it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"When we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself - nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations." -

"One of the most useless of all things is to take a deal of trouble in providing against dangers that never come. How many toil to lay up riches which they never enjoy; to provide for exigencies that never happen; to prevent troubles that never come; sacrificing present comfort and enjoyment in guarding against the wants of a period they may never live to see." - William Jay

"The true way of softening one's troubles is to solace those of others." - Madame de Maintenon, Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, formerly Madame Scarron

"All honorable means of safeguarding ourselves from evils are not only permitted but laudable. And constancy’s part is played principally in bearing troubles patiently where there is no remedy." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Know this, that troubles come swifter than the things we desire." - Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

"Our greatest troubles spring from something that is as admirable as it is dangerous... our impatience to better the lot of our fellows." -

"The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things." -

"We are more often frightened than hurt: our troubles spring more often from fancy than reality." -

"Who shrinks from knowledge of his calamities but aggravates his fear; troubles half seen do torture all the more." -

"Man’s freedom is never in being saved troubles, but it is the freedom to take trouble for his own good, to make the trouble an element in his joy... that in pain is symbolised the infinite possibility of perfection, the eternal unfolding of joy." -

"I have known many troubles, but most of them never happened." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

"Never complain about your troubles; they are responsible for more than half of your income." - Robert Updegraff, fully Robert Rawls Updegraff

"Grief should be like joy, majestic, sedate, confirming, cleansing, equable, making free, strong to consume small troubles, to command great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL

"Men's happiness springs mainly from moderate troubles, which afford the mind a healthful stimulus, and are followed by a reaction which produces a cheerful flow of spirits." - Edward Wigglesworth

"Warning! Following are the names of the Seven Mischievous Misses who are responsible for most of our troubles: Miss Information, Miss Quotation, Miss Representation, Miss Interpretation, Miss Construction, Miss Conception, Miss Understanding. Don't listen to them! Beware!" - William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

"Troubles forereckoned are doubly suffered." - Christian Nestell Bovee

"Take your duty, and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. The harder it is, the stronger in fact you will be. Understand, also, that the great question her is, not what you will get, but what you will become. The greatest wealth you can ever get will be in yourself. Take your burdens and troubles and losses and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunity, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these." - Horace Bushnell

"Most of the troubles of humanity are imaginary and should be laughed out of court. It is folly to cross a bridge until you come to it, or to bid the Devil good-morning until you meet him - perfect folly. All is well until the stroke falls, and even then, nine times out of ten, it is not so bad as anticipated. A wise man is the confirmed optimist." - Andrew Carnegie

"Debt haunts the mind; a conversation about justice troubles it; the sight of a creditor fills it with confusion; even the sanctuary is not a place of refuge. The borrower is servant to the lender. Independence, so essential to the virtues and pleasures of a man, can only be maintained by setting bounds to our desires and owing no man anything." - Chartery NULL

"Every day is a fresh beginning, Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain, and spite of old sorrow, and older sinning, and troubles forecasted, and possible pain, take heart with the day, and begin again." - Susan Coleridge

"Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

"When you talk about your troubles, your ailments, your diseases, your hurts, you give longer life to what makes you unhappy. Talking about your grievances merely adds to those grievances. Give recognition only to what you desire. Think and talk only about the good things that add to your enjoyment of your work and life. If you don't talk about your grievances, you'll be delighted to find them disappearing quickly." - Thomas Dreier

"The great trouble today is that there are too many people looking for someone else to do something for them. The solution of most of our troubles is to be found in everyone doing something for himself." - Henry Ford

"He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in the soil with strong mixture of troubles." - Harry Emerson Fosdick

"Today's troubles make us forget yesterday's." -

"I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. It think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it." - Oscar Hammerstein II, fully Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hamerstein II

"What is it that troubles you? Death? Who lives forever? Or because your foot has stumbled on the earth? There is no man who has never stumbled." -

"Troubles, like babies, grow larger by nursing." -

"When shall we learn that he who multiplieth possessions, multiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of things which we call our own, is that they may be his who hath need of them?" - Thomas Hughes

"I learned much from my teachers, more from my books, and most from my troubles." - Isaac ben Abraham Kaminer

"Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less." - Charles Lamb

"Those who give the first shock to a state are naturally the first to be overwhelmed in its ruin. The fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by the man who was the first to set it a going; he only troubles the water for another’s net." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"One cannot have faith without optimism. Faith and hope are inseparable. Depression is a great obstacle in the spiritual life and we must strive to conquer it... Cheerfulness is one of the essential spiritual qualities we must guard ourselves against dejection, self-denunciation, or even feeling a little down-hearted... Dejection invariably distorts our vision - it magnifies our troubles." - Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL

"Trifling troubles find utterance; deeply felt pangs are silent." -

"What madness to anticipate one's troubles." -

"If we share our troubles we halve them." - Patricia Wentworth, born Dora Amy Elles

"The man whom neither riches nor luxury nor grandeur can render happy may, with a book in his hand, forget all his troubles under the friendly shade of every tree, and may experience pleasures as infinite as they are varied, as pure as they are lasting, as lively as they are unfading, and as compatible with every public duty as they are contributory to private happiness." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." -

"Better never trouble until trouble troubles you. For you only make your trouble double trouble when you do. And your trouble like a bubble that you’re troubling about may be nothing but a cipher with the rim rubbed out." -

"Have you ever considered how dreadful it would be if our lives had no appointed end but went on forever? Can you imagine that as far as the eye can see into the future we should remain enmeshed in all the desires and troubles of this life and that all the ensuing envy, hatred and malice, our own and other people’s should continue to pile up undiminished? If you have ever considered how intolerable the burden of our life would be without the understood certainty that it has an appointed end, you know that death comes to all, even the most fortunate, not as an enemy but as a deliverance." - Albert Schweitzer

"The art of living lays less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." -

"When I look at the stars and realize that the light from some of these suns takes a million years to reach my eyes, I realize how tiny and insignificant this earth is, and how microscopic and evanescent are my own little troubles. I will pass on soon; but the sea stretching for a thousand miles in all directions and the stars and the spiral nebulae swarming through illimitable space above, they will continue for millions of years. I marvel that any man looking up at the stars can have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance." -

"Amid troubles give joyance to your souls while today is yours." - Aeschylus NULL

"Amid troubles give joyance to your souls while today is yours." -

"Democracies are safer and more permanent than oligarchies, because they have a middle class which is more numerous and has a greater share in the government; for when there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end." - Aristotle NULL

"Where there is no middle class, and the poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes to an end." - Aristotle NULL

"The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth." - Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, known as Dean Stanley

"Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles. It empties today of it’s strength." - Author Unknown NULL