Great Throughts Treasury

"Fear nothing but what thy industry may prevent; be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot defeat; it is no less folly to fear what is impossible to be avoided than to be secure when there is a possibility to be deprived. " - Francis Quarles

"Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. " - Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

"All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people. " - James A. Garfield

"Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all; when it first appears we can at least prevent its further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath on empty arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men and subject to the same weaknesses. Make him feel it or he will never know it." -

"Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity; there is no cure for this but experience, if indeed there is any cure for it at all; when it first appears we can at least prevent its further growth. But do not on this account waste your breath on empty arguments to prove to the youth that he is like other men and subject to the same weaknesses. Make him feel it or he will never know it." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess." - Jeremy Collier

"The Reader may here observe the Force of Numbers, which can be successfully applied, even to those things, which one would imagine are subject to no Rules. There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduc'd to a Mathematical Reasoning and when they cannot it's a sign our knowledge of them is very small and confus'd and when a Mathematical Reasoning can be had it's as great a folly to make use of any other, as to grope for a thing in the dark, when you have a Candle standing by you." - John Arbuthnot

"Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society." - John Locke

"It is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental science the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)... despise utility. But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified after the making of discoveries, rather than before." - John Charles Polanyi

"They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend. I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"Life knows us not and we do not know life—-we don’t know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another." - Joseph Roux

"Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of the law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between the two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government." - Learned Hand, fully Billings Learned Hand

"Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures." - Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

"There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself in a safe and unassailable position; then no one will suffer any losses. The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony. " - Morihei Ueshiba

"The principal axiom in their theory was: Everything can be proved, and everything can be disproved; and in the process, one must profit as much from the folly of others, and from his own superiority, as he can." - Moses Mendelssohn

"That is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realising that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you're rubbing against worm food. No offense meant." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman

"In spite of every sage whom Greece can show, unerring wisdom never dwelt below; folly in all of every age we see, the only difference lies in the degree." - Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux, sometimes Nicholas Desperaux or Nicolas Boileau

"There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom." - Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas

"The current generation now sees everything clearly, it marvels at the errors, it laughs at the folly of its ancestors, not seeing that this chronicle is all overscored by divine fire, that every letter of it cries out, that from everywhere the piercing finger is pointed at it, at this current generation; but the current generation laughs and presumptuously, proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards." - Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol

"It may be considered folly by common opinion but this refusal to destroy life unnecessarily, this reverence for it, must become a deeply implanted part of his ethical standard. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man." - Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

"The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us. " - Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry

"His consuming interest remains in the world of men, their institutions, their history, their passions. And because he is interested in men, nothing that men do can be altogether tedious...He will naturally be interested in the events that engage men’s ultimate beliefs, their moments of tragedy and grandeur and ecstasy. But he will also be fascinated by the commonplace, the everyday. He will know reverence, but this reverence will not prevent him from wanting to see and to understand. He may sometimes feel revulsion or contempt , but this will also not deter him from wanting to have his questions answered. ...in his quest for understanding, moves through the world of men without respect for the usual lines of demarcation. Nobility ad degradation, power and obscurity, intelligence and folly -- these are equally interesting to him, however unequal they may be in his personal values or tastes. This his questions may lead him to all possible levels of society, the best and least known places, the most respected and the most despised. ...he will find himself in all these places because his own questions have so taken possession of him that he has little choice but to seek for answers." - Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger

"The best plan is to profit by the folly of others." - Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

"There remain therefore, in human nature the effects of original sin, the chief of which are weakness of will and disorderly inclinations. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away [Prov. 22: 15]. Disorderly inclinations then must be corrected, good tendencies encouraged and regulated from tender childhood, and above all the mind must be enlightened and the will strengthened by supernatural truth and by the means of grace, without which it is impossible to control evil impulses." -

"It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door." - Publius Syrus

"If you believe in everything, some of your beliefs may be foolish but you will also believe in the truth. However, when a person is too clever and does not want to believe in anything, he may begin by ridiculing falsehood and folly but can easily end up so skeptical of everything that he even denies the truth." - Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL

"Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes." - Richard Cecil

"It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do." - Richard Whately

"It is folly to shiver over last year's snow." - Richard Whately

"Quaint though this attitude seems now, it was unquestionably the prevalent one in the nineteenth century, and it would be over-bold to say that it will never return to favour, for the range of human folly is infinite." - Robertson Davies

"A Child My Choice - Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled. I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His; While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss. Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light, To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight. He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due; First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true. Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is: As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless. His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all; His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall. Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing; Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring. Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly, Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!" - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

"Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time." - Helen Rowland

"Have it jest as you've a mind to, but I've proved it time on time, / If you want to change her nature you have got to give her lime." - Rudyard Kipling

"Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit... The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to — no chance to reply to them.... The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes

"An unjust law is no law at all." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Enter into the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed again to enter the Church, be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"It is not possible, I say not possible, ever to exhaust the mind of the Scriptures. It is a well which has no bottom." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"Among those whom I never could persuade to rank themselves with idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal rambles, one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another exhibits the dust of of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoeck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend rings to a load­stone, and find that what they did yesterday, they can do again today. - Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable. - There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot if they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury for, as I said before, it can reach but a very few." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a civilization founded on the spirituality of work." - Simone Weil

"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together." - Stephen Charnock

"He hath willed everything that may be for our good, if we perform the condition he hath required; and hath put it upon record, that we may know it and regulate our desires and supplications according to it. If we will not seek him, his immutability cannot be a bar, but our own folly is the cause; and by our neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us, and either imply that he is not sincere, and means not as he speaks; or that he is as changeable as the wind, sometimes this thing, sometimes that, and not at all to be confided in. If we ask according to his revealed will, the unchangeableness of his nature will assure us of the grant; and what a presumption would it be in a creature dependent upon his sovereign, to ask that which he knows he has declared his will against; since there is no good we can want, but he hath promised to give, upon our sincere and ardent desire for it." - Stephen Charnock

"Hence is the ground for the immutability of God. As he is incapable of changing his resolves, because of his infinite wisdom, so he is incapable of being forced to any change, because of his infinite power. Being almighty, he can be no more changed from power to weakness, than, being all-wise, he can be changed from wisdom to folly, or, being omniscient, from knowledge to ignorance. He cannot be altered in his purposes, because of his wisdom; nor in the manner and method of his actions, because of his infinite strength. Men, indeed, when their designs are laid deepest and their purposes stand firmest, yet are forced to stand still, or change the manner of the execution of their resolves, by reason of some outward accidents that obstruct them in their course; for, having not wisdom to foresee future hindrances, they have not power to prevent them, or strength to remove them, when they unexpectedly interpose themselves between their desire and performance; but no created power has strength enough to be a bar against God. By the same act of his will that he resolves a thing, he can puff away any impediments that seem to rise up against him. He that wants no means to effect his purposes cannot be checked by anything that riseth up to stand in his way; heaven, earth, sea, the deepest places are too weak to resist his will." - Stephen Charnock

"It is a vain charge men bring against the divine precepts, that they are rigorous, severe, difficult; when, besides the contradiction to our Savior, who tells us his “yoke is easy” and his “burthen light,” they thwart their own calm reason and judgment. Is there not more difficulty to be vicious, covetous, violent, cruel, than to be virtuous, charitable, kind? Doth the will of God enjoin that that is not conformable to right reason, and secretly delightful in the exercise and issue? And, on the contrary, what doth Satan and the world engage us in, that is not full of molestation and hazard? Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own consciences, and resist our own light, and commence a perpetual quarrel against ourselves, as we ordinarily do when we sin?" - Stephen Charnock

"The principal thing that troubled Clyde up to his fifteenth year, and for long after in retrospect, was that the calling or profession of his parents was the shabby thing that it appeared to be in the eyes of others." - Theodore Dreiser, fully Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser