Great Throughts Treasury

"In addition to the inflation, we have stagnating productivity. People don’t work the way they used to." - Arthur Burns, fully Arthur Frank Burns

"A mind conscious of integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform." - Robert Burns, aka Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard

"That which cometh from the heart will go to the heart." - Jeremiah Burroughs or Burroughes

"One of the saddest experiences which can ever come to a human being is to awaken, gray-haired and wrinkled near the close of an unproductive career, to the fact that all through the years he has been using only a small part of himself!" - V. W. Burrows

"Character is formed, not by laws, commands, and decrees, but by quiet influence, unconscious suggestion and personal guidance." - Marion LeRoy Burton

"From self alone expect applause." - Marion LeRoy Burton

"Temperance is a bridle of gold." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton

"How strange are the tricks of memory, which, often hazy as a dream about the most important events of a man's life, religiously preserve the merest trifles." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton

"One of the mistakes in the conduct of human life is to suppose that other men's opinions are to make us happy." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton

"It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience." - Horace Bushnell

"Respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it to the bitter end, and there is ignominy as well as guilt eternal." - Horace Bushnell

"The nobles charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents, more or less directly, the fruitfulness and creativeness of religion." - Horace Bushnell

"By moral power we mean the power of a life and a character, the power of good and great purposes, the power which comes at length to reside in a man distinguished in some course of estimable or great conduct. No other power of man compares with this, and there is no individual who may not be measurably invested with it." - Horace Bushnell

"When we can't have what we love we must love what we have." -

"Business leaders today can’t shrink from their obligation to set a moral example." - Willard C. Butcher, fully Willard Carlisle Butcher

"Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it." - Samuel Butler

"Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly his character appear in spite of him." - Samuel Butler

"From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right." - Samuel Butler

"He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor’s and shown publicly to the rabble." - Samuel Butler

"Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence." - Samuel Butler

"It is the unconscious liar that is the greatest liar." - Samuel Butler

"Night is the Sabbath of mankind, to rest the body and the mind." - Samuel Butler

"Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies." - Samuel Butler

"People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever, or amiable." - Samuel Butler

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him - therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man." - Samuel Butler

"The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance." - Samuel Butler

"The world will always be governed by self-interest: we should not try to stop this: we should try and make the self-interest of cads a little more coincident with that of decent people." - Samuel Butler

"There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas." - Samuel Butler

"To have the power to forgive, is empire and prerogative, and ‘tis in crowns a nobler gem, to grant a pardon than condemn." - Samuel Butler

"We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him." - Samuel Butler

"Affliction inspires wakefulness, which in turn removes ignorance, which is the ultimate cause of suffering." - Stephen Butterfield

"Learn to laugh. And most of all, learn to laugh at yourself. The person who can give a riotous account of his own faux pas, will never have to listen to another's embarrassing account of it. He will rarely know the sting of humiliation. His a delight to be with, but more important, he is enjoying his own life, and applying to his ills and errors the most soothing balm the human spirit has devised - laughter." - Margaret M. Butts

"A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes he is no longer indispensable." - Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

"A man the monarch of his soul." - John Byron, aka 'Mad Jack'

"A quiet conscience makes one so serene!" -

"Adversity is the first path to truth." -

"He who is only just is cruel." -

"Knowledge is not happiness, and science but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance." -

"None are all evil." -

"So let them ease their hearts with prate of equal rights, which man never knew." -

"Solitude has but one disadvantage - it is apt to give one too high an opinion of one’s self. In the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known or supposed defect we may have." -

"The busy have no time for tears." -

"There is a very life in our despair." -

"There is no instinct like that of the heart." -

"There is no sterner moralist than pleasure." -

"Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure." -

"Write down on paper your goal in life. With that down in black and white, we really can get somewhere. Few can define their goal, much less write it. You cannot find happiness until your goal is clear in view." -

"There is no memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted." -

"Your true... tragedy is enacted on the stage of a man’s soul, and with the man’s reasons as lone auditor." -

"Make haste slowly." -