Great Throughts Treasury

"It is most true, our style betrays us." - Robert Burton

"By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education.... From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments." - Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker

"It is by character and not by intellect the world is won." - S.G. Tallentyre, nom de plume for Evelyn Beatrice Hall

"A News-monger is a Retailer of Rumour, that takes up upon Trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable Commodity, that will not keep: for if it be not fresh it lies upon his Hands, and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for Novelty being the Grace of bothe, a Truth grows stale as soon as a Lye." - Samuel Butler

"Never had he found himself so close to those terrible weapons of feminine artillery." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"Natural selection can only produce adaptation to immediately surrounding (and changing) environments. No feature of such local adaptation should yield any expectation of general progress (however such a vague term be defined). Local adaptation may as well lead to anatomical simplification as to greater complexity. As an adult, the famous parasite Sacculina, a barnacle by ancestry, looks like a formless bag of reproductive tissue attached to the underbelly of its crab host (with ‘roots’ of equally formless tissue anchored within the body of the crab itself)—a devilish device to be sure (at least by our aesthetic standards), but surely less anatomically complex than a barnacle on the bottom of your boat, waving its legs through the water in search of food." - Stephan Jay Gould

"Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline... We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domain. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers." - Stephan Jay Gould

"Wallace's error on human intellect arose from the inadequacy of his rigid selectionism, not from a failure to apply it. And his argument repays our study today, since its flaw persists as the weak link in many of the most modern evolutionary speculations of our current literature. For Wallace's rigid selectionism is much closer than Darwin's pluralism to the attitude embodied in our favored theory today, which, ironically in this context, goes by the name of Neo-Darwinism." - Stephan Jay Gould

"We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are." - Stephan Jay Gould

"Western field-work conjures up images of struggle on horseback… toughing it out on one canteen a day as you labor up and down mountains. The value of a site is supposedly correlated with the difficulty of getting there. This, of course, is romantic drivel. Ease of access is no measure of importance. The famous La Brea tar pits are right in downtown Los Angeles. To reach the Clarkia lake beds, you turn off the main road at Buzzard's Roost Trophy Company and drive the remaining fifty yards right up to the site." - Stephan Jay Gould

"The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you'll do yourself a service." - Stephen Sondheim, fully Stephen Joshua Sondheim

"Down comes rain drop, bubble follows; On the house-top one by one Flock the synagogue of swallows, Met to vote that autumn's gone." - Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

"The Gossip is a person who, when he meets his friend, will assume a demure air, and ask with a smile — ‘Where are you from, and what are your tidings?" - Theophrastus NULL

"When I see others astonishingly blind to their failings, I suppose it to be my own case, and should think that man my friend who helps to open my eyes." - Thomas Adam

"The sheep are happier of themselves than under the care of a wolf." - Thomas Jefferson

"We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"To a Lady Before Marriage - Oh! form'd by Nature, and refin'd by Art, With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart! By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free Thy croud of captives and descend to me? Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, A hidden beauty and a country wife. O! listen while thy summers are my theme, Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream! In some small hamlet on the lonely plain, Where Thames, through meadows, rolls his mazy train; Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd, Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade, Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat; Already round the visionary seat Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring, The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing. Where dost thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green? Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen? Where sons, contented with their native ground, Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round; And the tann'd peasant, and his ruddy bride, Were born together, and together died. Where early larks best tell the morning light, And only Philomel disturbs the night, 'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dies; All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end, The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend; And oh! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve, A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove, A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd, Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade. What chearing scents those bordering banks exhale! How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale! That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high, He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky. Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn, The deep-mouth'd beagle, and the sprightly horn; Or lure the trout with well dissembled flies, Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies. Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine, The downy peach, or flavour'd nectarine; Or rob the bee-hive of its golden hoard, And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board. Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours, While from thy needle rise the silken flowers, And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble sight, Resume the volume, and deceive the night. Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest, Soft whispering, let me warn my love to rest; Then watch thee, charm'd, while sleep locks every sense, And to sweet Heaven commend thy innocence. Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural fold, Wise, hale, and honest in the days of old; Till courts arose, where substance pays for show, And specious joys are bought with real woe. See Flavia's pendants, large, well-spread, and right, The ear that wears them hears a fool each night: Mark how the embroider'd colonel sneaks away, To shun the withering dame that made him gay; That knave, to gain a title, lost his fame; That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame; This coxcomb's ribband cost him half his land, And oaks, unnumber'd, bought that fool a wand. Fond man, as all his sorrows were too few, Acquires strange wants that nature never knew, By midnight lamps he emulates the day, And sleeps, perverse, the chearful suns away; From goblets high-embost, his wine must glide, Found his clos'd sight the gorgeous curtain slide; Fruits ere their time to grace his pomp must rise, And three untasted courses glut his eyes. For this are nature's gentle calls withstood, The voice of conscience, and the bonds of blood; This wisdom thy reward for every pain, And this gay glory all thy mighty gain. Fair phantoms woo'd and scorn'd from age to age, Since bards began to laugh, and priests to rage. And yet, just curse on man's aspiring kind, Prone to ambition, to example blind, Our children's children shall our steps pursue, And the same errours be for ever new. Mean while in hope a guiltless country swain, My reed with warblings chears the imagin'd plain. Hail humble shades, where truth and silence dwell! The noisy town and faithless court farewell! Farewell ambition, once my darling flame! The thirst of lucre, and the charm of fame! In life's by-road, that winds through paths unknown, My days, though number'd, shall be all my own. Here shall they end, (O! might they twice begin) And all be white the Fates intend to spin. " - Thomas Tickell

"The only interesting ideas are heresies." - Susan Sontag

"Spiritually I am wherever my spirit allows me to be, and that is not necessarily in the future... Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure. I always seem to be wrapped in the melodrama of vulgarity." - Willem de Kooning

"One leg by truth supported, one by lies, they sidle to the goal with awkward pace, secure of nothing -- but to lose the race." - William Cowper

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing" - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

"Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, strong and content I travel the open road." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws, namely, the fusion and combination of the conscious will, or partial individual law, with those universal, eternal, unconscious ones which run through all Time, pervade history, prove immortality, give moral purpose to the entire objective world, and the last dignity to human life." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others." - Walter Bagehot

"I am reminded how hollow the label of leadership sometimes is and how heroic followership can be." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis

"The principle that where there is fear, there will be wrong figures." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming

"But I, Caesar, have not sought to amass wealth by the practice of my art, having been rather contented with a small fortune and reputation, than desirous of abundance accompanied by a want of reputation." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes." - Vivienne Westwood, born Vivienne Isabel Swire

"My vocabulary dwells deep in my mind and needs paper to wriggle out into the physical zone. Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle. I have rewritten, often several times, every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"To think that between a Hamburger and a Humburger, she would—invariably, with icy precision—plump for the former." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"The great consolation in life is to say what one thinks." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"I have a terrible need of – dare I say the word? – religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighborhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"For if there are (at a venture) seventy-six different times all ticking in the mind at once, how many different people are there not – Heaven help us – all having lodgment at one time or another in the human spirit?" - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess – he was a woman." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"There are the stars--doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest." - Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

"I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may always be expected to co-exist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind while bad passions possess the interior regions of the heart. At the same time, this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying." - Hugh Blair

"But since the affairs of men rests still incertain, let's reason with the worst that may befall." -

"But such a straight identification of religion with any and every form of happiness leaves the essential peculiarity of religious happiness out. The more commonplace happinesses which we get are 'reliefs,' occasioned by our momentary escapes from evils either experienced or threatened. But in its most characteristic embodiments, religious happiness is no mere feeling of escape. It cares no longer to escape. It consents to the evil outwardly as a form of sacrifice — inwardly it knows it to be permanently overcome. ... In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there — that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck." - William James

"There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly." - William James

"Inclination is another word with which will is frequently confounded. Thus, when the apothecary says, in Romeo and Juliet,— “My poverty, but not my will, consents; Take this and drink it off; the work is done.” the word will is plainly used as synonymous with inclination; not in the strict logical sense, as the immediate antecedent of action. It is with the same latitude that the word is used in common conversation, when we think of doing a thing which duty prescribes, against one’s own will; or when we speak of doing a thing willingly or unwillingly." - Dugald Stewart

"The world know it not; but you, Autumn, I confess it: your wind at night-fall stabs deep into my heart." - Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

"As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. - Armies cannot protect it then; and walls that have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt." - Edwin Percy Whipple

"Everybody knows that fanaticism is religion caricatured, and yet, with many, contempt of fanaticism is regarded as a sign of hostility to religion." - Edwin Percy Whipple

"One thing that has helped me personally in the past was to stop interfering with the people around me and getting frustrated when I couldn’t change them. Instead of intrusion and passivity, may I suggest submission? Some people make the mistake of confusing submission with weakness, whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend." - Elif Safak

"It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better." - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, fully Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

"It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live!" - Emile Zola

"Overhead she [Renée] could smell the palm trees, whose tall leaves shook down their aroma. And more than the stifling heat, more than the brilliant light, more than the great dazzling flowers, like faces laughing or grimacing between the leaves, it was the odours that overwhelmed her. An indescribable perfume, potent, exciting, composed of a thousand different perfumes, hung about her; human exudation, the breath of women, the scent of hair; and breezes sweet and swooningly faint were blended with breezes coarse and pestilential, laden with poison. But amid this strange music of odours, the dominant melody that constantly returned, stifling the sweetness of the vanilla and the orchids' pungency was the penetrating, sensual smell of flesh, the smell of lovemaking escaping in the early morning from the bedrooms of newlyweds." - Emile Zola