Great Throughts Treasury

"A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes disruptive force of candour."

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."

"It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought."

"It is impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning."

"Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught."

"To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate."

"To be sincere with ourselves is better and harder than to be painstakingly accurate with others."

"Discussion without asperity, sympathy with fusion, gayety unracked by too abundant jests, mental ease in approaching one another, these are the things which give a pleasant smoothness to the rough edge of life."

"Art is never didactic, does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon."

"It has been wisely said that we cannot really love anybody at whom we never laugh."

"Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding."

"A man who listens because he has nothing to say can hardly be a source of inspiration. The only listening that counts is that of the talker who alternatively absorbs and expresses ideas."

"It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self."

"People who cannot recognize a palpable absurdity are very much in the way of civilization."

"There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth."

"We cannot hope to scale great moral heights by ignoring petty obligations."