Great Throughts Treasury

"One of the best of all earthly possessions is self-possession."

"It is undoubtedly true that some people mistake sycophancy for good nature, but it is equally true that man more mistake impertinence for sincerity."

"Memory is not so brilliant as hope, but it is more beautiful, and a thousand times more true."

"The pen is a formidable weapon; but a man can kill himself with it a great deal more easily than he can other people."

"The greater part of whitewashing is done with ink."

"Our material possessions, like our joys, are enhanced in value by being shared. Hoarded and unimproved property can only afford satisfaction to a miser."

"A bare assertion is not necessarily the naked truth. "

"A friend you have to buy won't be worth what you pay for him."

"A pin has as much head as some authors and a good deal more point."

"A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string."

"It seems no more than right that men should seize time by the forelock, for the rude old fellow, sooner or later, pulls all their hair out."

"It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world. All parties without exception, when they seek for power, are varieties of absolutism."

"Much smoking kills live men and cures dead swine."

"Some people seem as if they can never have been children, and others seem as if they could never be anything else."

"We are in favor of tolerance, but it is a very difficult thing to tolerate the intolerant and impossible to tolerate the intolerable."

"What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn't much better than tedious disease."

"When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it's pretty certain that she has his."

"There are many men whose tongues might govern multitudes if they could govern their tongues."

"Some people use one half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it."