Great Throughts Treasury

"Violence does even justice unjustly." - Thomas Carlyle

"The worth of a thing is known by its want." - Thomas D'Urfey

"I know women are taught by other women that they must never admit the full truth to a man. But the highest form of affection is based on full sincerity on both sides. Not being men, these women don't know that in looking back on those he has had tender relations with, a man's heart returns closest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The better class of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging and parrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis attends the woman who plays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt for her that, sooner or later, her old admirers feel; under which they allow her to go unlamented to her grave." - Thomas Hardy

"When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

"The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end. The other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonours the Creator, by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other a visionary to whom we must be charitable." - Thomas Paine

"Since the examinations became influential, this world no longer knows there are books... The millions of people over the hundreds of years are lured only to how to copy each other, and to figure out what the examination content could be like. These people are empty shells and rotten leather. They are no talents at all. " - Wang Fuzhi or Fu-chih or Fuchih, pseudonym Chuanshan, courtesy name Ernong

"O thou who passest through our valleys in Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat that flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer, oft pitchest here thy golden tent, and oft beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld with joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair." - William Blake

"To guard against this, we must proceed as follows. Let down a lighted lamp, and if it keeps burning, a man may make the descent without danger." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"The truly practical person is the one who is trying to understand and end his inner warfare." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing." - Victor Hugo

"An if I live until I be a man, I'll win our ancient right in France again, or die a soldier, as I liv'd a king." - William Shakespeare

"And for I know she taketh most delight In music, instruments, and poetry, Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio, Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such, Prefer them hither, for to cunning men I will be very kind, and liberal To mine own children in good bringing-up." - William Shakespeare

"And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life." - William Shakespeare

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, thy god's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, o cromwell, thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king; and,-prithee, lead me in: there take an inventory of all I have, to the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all i dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"It is the habit of mediocre minds to condemn all that is beyond their grasp." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"The constancy of the wise is only the art of keeping disquietude to one's self." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"The most untutored person with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Prudence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"O curse of marriage! That we can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites. I had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapour of a dungeon, than keep a corner in the thing I love for others' uses. Othello, Act iii, Scene 3" - William Shakespeare

"O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year. The Merry Wives of Windsor (Anne Page at III, iv)" - William Shakespeare

"There is not a string attuned to mirth but has its chord of melancholy." - Edwin Paxton Hood

"Sirrah, your Father's dead: And what will you do now? How will you live? SON: As birds do, mother.L. MACDUFF: What with worms and flies? SON: With what I get, I mean; and so do they." - William Shakespeare

"So shines a good deed in a weary world." - William Shakespeare

"To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy." - Emil M. Cioran

"Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on Earth." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

"I am guilty of believing that the human race can be humanized and enriched in every spiritual inference through the saner and more beneficent processes of peaceful persuasion applied to material problems rather than through wars, riots and bloodshed." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs