Great Throughts Treasury

"Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration." -

"War is a crime which involves all others crimes." -

"What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable." -

"A technical objection is the first refuge of a scoundrel." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"For truth there is no deadline." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"The ability to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"Nobody expects to find comfort and companionability in reformers." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"Sports do not build character. They reveal it." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"The average child is an almost non-existent myth. To be normal one must be peculiar in some way or another." - Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

"Temperament we are born with, character we have to make; and that not in the grand moments... but in the daily, quiet paths of pilgrimage." - Gerald Baldwin Brown

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." -

"No man, with a man's heart in him gets far on his way without some bitter, soul-searching disappointment. Happy is he who is brave enough to push on to another stage of the journey." -

"The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose." -

"Most people spend most of their days doing what they do not want to do in order to earn the right, at times, to do what they may desire." -

"Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason, and invective for documentation than in politics. That is a realm, peopled only by villains or heroes, in which everything is black or white and gray is a forbidden color." -

"She knows what is the best purpose of education: not to be frightened by the best but to treat it as part of daily life." -

"What happiness is, no person can say for another. But no one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are." -

"What education does is to put a series of filters over your awareness so that year by year... you experience less and less." - Norman O. Brown, fully Norman Oliver Brown

"A poor man serv’d by thee, shall make thee rich." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Every wish is like a prayer with God." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I would rather be kicked with a foot than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Light tomorrow with today!" - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Who loves believe the impossible." - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God." - Lenny Bruce, born Leonard Alfred Schneider

"There is only one Duty. It is to realize the divinity within... our most sacred life purpose, the most honored ground of existence, and everything else must be made to subserve it." - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"[Fear] From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several - from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from the distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Every flatterer lives at the expense of his listener." - Jean de La Bruyère

"False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Gentleness accomplishes more than violence." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Habit, to which all of us are more or less slaves." - Jean de La Bruyère

"He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it." - Jean de La Bruyère

"I am a fellow citizen of all men who think. Truth; that is my country." - Jean de La Bruyère

"If it is usual to be deeply moved by rare things, why are we so little moved by virtue?" - Jean de La Bruyère

"If one wishes to be esteemed, one must live with estimable people." - Jean de La Bruyère

"It is a very rare thing to find ground which produces nothing. If it is not covered with flowers, fruit trees, and grains, it produces briars and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious." - Jean de La Bruyère

"It is boorish to give with a bad grace. If the act of giving entails an effort, what matters the additional cost of a smile?" - Jean de La Bruyère

"It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues than to correct ourselves of a single fault." - Jean de La Bruyère

"It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it." - Jean de La Bruyère

"It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Liberality consists less in giving profusely, than in giving judiciously." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Never judge people by their appearance." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Next to sound judgment, diamonds are pearls are the rarest things to be met with." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Nothing is so oppressive as a secret." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Our enemy is our master." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Patience and time do more than strength or passion." - Jean de La Bruyère