Great Throughts Treasury

"Nothing is in itself absolutely sacred, or profane, or unclean, apart from the mind, but only relatively thereto." -

"Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power of men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words." -

"The ambitious man desires nothing like glory, and on the other hand dreads nothing like shame. To the envious person, again, nothing is more pleasant than the misfortune of another, and nothing more disagreeable than the prosperity of another. And so each person according to his affect judges a thing to be good or evil, useful or useless." -

"To act absolutely in conformity with virtue is nothing but acting according to the laws of our own proper nature. But only in so far as we understand do we act. Therefore, to act in conformity with virtue is nothing but acting, living, and preserving our being as reason directs, and doing so from the ground of seeking our own profit." -

"We know that everything that exists, considered in itself and without relation to anything else, involves perfection, which extends, in each thing, as far as the thing's essence does. For essence is nothing other than perfection." -

"There is nothing so whole as a broken heart." -

"Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"Trust that man is nothing who has not a conscience in everything." - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

"Nothing in this life, after health and virtue, is more estimable than knowledge, nor is there anything so easily attained, or so cheaply purchased, the labor, only sitting still, and the expense but time, which, if we do not spend, we cannot save." - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

"The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

"To be rich in admiration and free from envy; to rejoice greatly in the good of others; to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence; these are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing. He who has such a treasury of riches, being happy and valiant himself, in his own nature, will enjoy the universe as if it were his own estate; and help the man to whom he lends a hand to enjoy it with him." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

"All creatures have existed eternally in the divine essence, as in their exemplar. So far as they conform to the divine idea, all beings were, before their creation, one thing with the essence of God. (God creates into time what was and is in eternity.” Eternally, all creatures are God in God... So far as they are in God, they are the same life, the same essence, the same power, the same One, and nothing less." - Henry Suso, aka Amandus or Saint Henry Suso

"Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation; humility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we should suffer; the other calms us by the reminder that we deserve nothing else." - Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

"We expect everything, and are prepared for nothing." - Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

"Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

"Nothing more unqualifies a man to act iwth prudence, than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

"Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn. It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble." - Thomas Talfourd, fully Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd

"We know nothing important. In the essentials we are still as wholly a mystery to ourselves as Adam was to himself." -

"Nothing is intolerable that is necessary." - Jeremy Taylor

"By far the most useful rule in life is nothing to excess." -

"I have everything, although I have nothing." -

"No man was ever endowed with a judgment so correct and judicious, in regulating his life, but that circumstances, time and experience would teach him something new, and apprise him that of those things with which he knew nothing; and that those ideas which in theory appeared the most advantageous were found, when brought into practice, to be altogether inapplicable." -

"Nothing is so easy but it is difficult if you do it unwillingly." -

"Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber." - William Makepeace Thackeray

"Nothing in excess; moderation is best in all things." - Theognis, aka Theognis of Megara NULL

"There are two kinds of failures: The man who will do nothing he is told, and the man who will do nothing else." - Perle Thompson, fully David Perle Thompson

"Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

"When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood." - John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

"All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom." -

"People today live without faith. On the one hand, the minority of wealthy, educated people, having freed themselves from the hypnotism of the Church, believe in nothing. They look upon all faiths as absurdities or as useful means of keeping the masses in bondage - no more. On the other hand, the vast majority, poor, uneducated, but for the most part truly sincere, remain under the hypnotism of the Church and therefore think they believe and have faith. But this is not really faith, for instead of throwing light on man’s position in the world it only darkens it." -

"The drama in our time is a great man fallen, who has reached the last degree of his degradation, and at the same time continues to pride himself on his past of which nothing now remains." -

"When you see ordinary situations with extraordinary insight it is like discovering a jewel in rubbish. If work becomes part of your spiritual practice, then your regular, daily problems cease to be only problems and become a source of inspiration. Nothing is rejected as ordinary and nothing is taken as being particularly sacred, but all the substance and material available in life-situations is used." -

"There is nothing so false that a sparkle of truth is not in it." -

"Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

"Sincerity is the fulfillment of our own nature, and to arrive at it we need only follow our true self. Sincerity is the beginning and end of existence; without it, nothing can endure. Therefore the mature person values sincerity above all things." - Tzu-Ssu or Zisi, born Kong Ji NULL

"Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." - A. H. Weiler

"I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me, you can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"I give nothing as duties. What others give as duties I give as living impulses (shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)" - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"Nothing endures but personal qualities." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"We have nothing to fear but sanity itself." - Robin Williams, fully Robin McLaurin Williams

"There is nothing in the world that will take the chip off one's shoulder like a feeling of success." - Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe

"Nothing presents a more mournful aspect than a family divided by anger and animosity." - Heinrich Zachokke, fully Johann Heinrich Daniel Zachokke

"Man seems to be deficient in nothing so much as he is in time." - Zeno of Citium NULL

"The racial lines, which once were bitterly real, now serve nothing more than marking out a living mosaic of human beings." - Zitkala-Sa, also Zitkala-Ša, missionary-given name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin NULL

"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts." - Henry Gardiner Adams

"Mysticism is nothing but an overwhelming concentration of religious feeling." -

"Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea." - Alain Pen name of Emile-Auguste Chartier

"Man is born for action; he ought to do something. Work, at each step, awakens a sleeping force and roots our error. Who does nothing, knows nothing. Rise! to work! If thy knowledge is real, employ it; wrestle with nature; test the strength of thy theories; see if they will support the trial; act!" - Alfred "Trader Horn" Aloysius, born Alfred Aloysius Smith

"Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing." -

"Happiness has no limits, because God has neither bottom nor bounds, and because happiness is nothing but the conquest of God through love." -