Great Throughts Treasury

"“Yes,” I said, “I can, if it’s wanted. I’ll look through the cast, and no doubt I can find one at least of them that ought to be put to death.” “Yes, yes,” said the manager enthusiastically, “I am sure you can.”" - Stephen Leacock, fully Stephen Butler Leacock

"And we always took care that the action happened in some place that was worthwhile, not simply in an ordinary room with ordinary furniture, the way it is in the new drama. The scene was laid in a lighthouse (to story), or in a mad house (at midnight), or in a power house, or a dog house, or a bath house, in short, in some place with a distinct local color and atmosphere." - Stephen Leacock, fully Stephen Butler Leacock

"She had no desire for accuracy—those so organized rarely do—no desire for precise information. Innate sensuousness rarely has. It basks in sunshine, bathes in color, dwells in a sense of the impressive and the gorgeous, and rests there. Activity is not necessary except in the case of aggressive, acquisitive natures when it manifests itself in a desire to seize. Sensuousness can be so manifested in the most active dispositions, and apparently only in such." - Theodore Dreiser, fully Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser

"What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance." - Theodore Roethke

"Among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it — the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"Finally, it would be a master stroke if those great powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others. The supreme difficulty in connection with developing the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive power, of any police power to enforce the decrees of the court. In any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon actual or potential force: on the existence of a police, or on the knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are put into effect." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"The worst of all fears is the fear of living." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"Violent excess is sure to provoke violent reaction; and the worst possible policy for our country would be one of violent oscillation between reckless upsetting of property rights, and unscrupulous greed manifested under pretense of protecting those rights. The agitator who preaches hatred and practices slander and untruthfulness, and the visionary who promises perfection and accomplishes only destruction, are the worst enemies of reform; and the man of great wealth who accumulates and uses his wealth without regard to ethical standards, who pro?ts by and breeds corruption, and robs and swindles others, is the very worst enemy of property, the very worst enemy of conservatism, the very worst enemy of those business interests that only too often regard him with mean admiration and heatedly endeavor to shield him from the consequences of his iniquity." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"What is the lesson to us to-day? Are we to go the way of the older civilizations? The immense increase in the area of civilized activity to-day, so that it is nearly coterminous with the world's surface; the immense increase in the multitudinous variety of its activities; the immense increase in the velocity of the world movement—are all these to mean merely that the crash will be all the more complete and terrible when it comes? We can not be certain that the answer will be in the negative; but of this we can be certain, that we shall not go down in ruin unless we deserve and earn our end. There is no necessity for us to fall; we can hew out our destiny for ourselves, if only we have the wit and the courage and the honesty." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love." - Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

"Whatever may have been said of the satiety of pleasure and of the disgust which usually follows passion, any man who has anything of a heart and who is not wretchedly and hopelessly blasé feels his love increased by his happiness, and very often the best way to retain a lover ready to leave is to give one's self up to him without reserve." - Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

"They are soon wearied of well-doing; for holy duties are not agreeable to their corrupt nature. Take notice of them at their worldly business, set them down with their carnal company, or let them be enjoying a lust; time seems to them to fly, and drive furiously, so that it is gone before they are aware. But how heavily does it pass, while a prayer, a sermon, or a Sabbath lasts! The Lord's day is the longest day of all the week, with many; therefore, they must sleep longer that morning, and go sooner to bed that night, than ordinarily they do; that the day may be made of a tolerable length—for their hearts say within them, "When will the Sabbath be gone?" Amos 8:5. The hours of worship are the longest hours of that day—hence, when duty is over, they are like men eased of a burden; and when sermon is ended, many have neither the grace nor the good manners to stay until the blessing is pronounced—but, like the beasts, their head is away, as soon as a man puts his hand to loose them; and why? Because, while they are at ordinances, they are, as Doeg, "detained before the Lord,"" - Thomas Boston

"There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin, the dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill; for his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing. To wander along by the wind-beaten hill. But the day star attracted his eyes' sad devotion, for it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean, where once in the fire of his youthful emotion he sang the bold anthem of Erin-go-bragh." - Thomas Campbell

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

"A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly." - Thomas Hardy

"All her shining keys will be took from her, and her cupboards opened, and things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will see; and her little wishes and ways will all be as nothing." - Thomas Hardy

"I need not go through sleet and snow to where I know she waits for me: she will tarry there till I find it fair, and have time to spare from company." - Thomas Hardy

"It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession." - Thomas Hardy

"It is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then." - Thomas Hardy

"Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong women the man, many years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order" - Thomas Hardy

"With how great labour or with how great paine men winne good, to the world leave it shall; unto the pit goeth naught but the careyne. [carcass]" - Thomas Hood

"Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied." - Thomas Hughes

"One's own—what a charm there is in the words! how long it takes boy and man to find out their worth! how fast most of us hold on to them! faster and more jealously, the nearer we are to the general home into which we can take nothing, but must go naked as we came into the world. When shall we learn that he who multiplieth possessions, multiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of things which we call our own, is that they may be his who hath need of them?" - Thomas Hughes

"He who lies upon the ground he has nothing to fall. I spent a fortune on the powers of mischief, then nothing is left to be hurt more. (Loosely Translation: He sat on the ground lies Fall can fly farther. On me, Fortune has exhausted her Power of hurting, nothing remains That can threaten me anymore . )" - Thomas Kyd

"Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who love us! I mean, to resent it as a humiliating patronage." - Thomas Merton

"Faith, if the truth were known, I was begot after some gluttonous dinner; some stirring dish was my first father. When deep healths went round, and ladies' cheeks were painted red with wine, their tongues as short and nimble as their heels, uttering words sweet and thick, and when they rose were marrily disposed to fall again: Oh, damnation met the sin of feasts, drunken adultery! I feel it swell me; my revenge is just: I was begot in impudent wine and lust… As for my brother, the duke's only son, whose birth is more beholding to report than mine, and yet perhaps as falsely sown, I'll loose my days upon him, hate all I." - Thomas Middleton

"Honest men are the soft easy cushions on which knaves repose and fatten." - Thomas Otway

"What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith." - Thomas Paine

"What more does man want to know than that the hand or power that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this with the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course." - Thomas Paine

"The very thoughts of change I hate, As much as of despair; Nor ever covet to be great, Unless it be for her." - Thomas Parnell

"Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made of - NOW all the cloudy shapes that float and lie Within this magic globe we call the brain Fold quite away, condense, withdraw, refrain, And show it tenantless—an empty sky. Return, O parting visions, pass not by; Nor leave me vacant still, with strivings vain, Longing to grasp at your dim garment’s train, And be drawn on to sleep’s immunity. I lie and pray for fancies hovering near; Oblivion’s kindly troop, illusions blest; Dim, trailing phantoms in a world too clear; Soft, downy, shadowy forms, my spirit’s nest; The warp and woof of sleep; till, freed from fear, I drift in sweet enchantment back to rest." - Thomas Wentworth Higginson

"For more than twenty-five years my mind had been deeply troubled by the fact that these mechanical and scientific achievements of man had outrun his intellectual and spiritual power. ...Throughout the Second World War this terrible problem hung in the back of my mind. As I write these words the problem and the danger are as threatening as ever. We hope our nation will survive, but in its effort to survive will it transform itself intellectually and spiritually into the image of the thing against which we fought?" - Virginia Gildersleeve, fully Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve

"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." - William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley

"Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. ‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies.’ ‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all cover’d with sheep.’ ‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.’ The little ones leapèd and shoutèd and laugh’d And all the hills echoèd." - William Blake

"Songs of Innocence (Introduction) - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped; he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer:’ So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ‘Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.’ So he vanish’d from my sight, And I pluck’d a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear." - William Blake

"His whole life is an epigram smart, smooth and neatly penn’d, Plaited quite neat to catch applause, with a hang-noose at the end. " - William Blake

"Maybe in that earlier phase I was painting the woman in me. Art isn't a wholly masculine occupation, you know." - Willem de Kooning

"My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate." - Willem de Kooning

"And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease or gratification?" - William Blake

"Let thy west wind sleep on the lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes, and wash the dusk with silver." - William Blake

"The old and new testaments are the great code of art." - William Blake

"The prince's robes and beggar's rags, are toadstools on the miser's bags. A truth that's told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent." - William Blake

"Adventure is the vitaminizing element in histories both individual and social." - William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall

"The house to which Phelim and his father directed themselves was, like their own, of the humblest description. The floor of it was about sixteen feet by twelve; its furniture rude and scanty. To the right of the fire was a bed, the four posts of [xii] which ran up to the low roof; it was curtained by straw mats, with the exception of an opening about a foot and a half wide on the side next the fire, through which those who slept in it passed. A little below the foot of the bed were ranged a few shelves of deal, supported by pins of wood driven into the wall. These constituted the dresser. In the lower end of the house stood a potato-bin, made up of stakes driven into the floor, and wrought with strong wicker-work. Tied to another stake beside this bin stood a cow, whose hinder part projected so close to the door, that those who entered the cabin were compelled to push her over out of their way. This, indeed, was effected without much difficulty, for the animal became so habituated to the necessity of moving aside that it was only necessary to lay a hand upon her. Above the door in the inside, almost touching the roof, was the hen-roost, made also of wickerwork; and opposite the bed, on the other side of the fire, stood a meal chest, its lid on a level with the little pane of glass which served as a window. An old straw chair, a few stools, a couple of pots, some wooden vessels and crockery, completed the furniture of the house. The pig to which Sheelah alluded was not kept within the cabin, that filthy custom being now less common than formerly." - William Carleton

"His pure thoughts were borne like fumes of sacred incense o'er the clouds, and wafted thence on angels' wings, through ways of light, to the bright source of all." - William Congreve

"I nauseate walking 'tis a country diversion I loathe the country" - William Congreve

"In my conscience I believe the baggage loves me, for she never speaks well of me herself, nor suffers anybody else to rail at me." - William Congreve

"You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour." - William Congreve