Great Throughts Treasury

"Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few."

"Love does not dominate; it cultivates."

"Make the most of time, it flies away so fast; yet method will teach you to win time."

"Man believe himself always greater than he is, and is esteemed less than he is worth."

"Music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect."

"Mysteries are not necessarily miracles."

"Nature goes her own way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order."

"Nature is the living, visible garment of God."

"Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction."

"Nature reacts not only to physical disease, but also to moral weakness; when the danger increases, she gives us greater courage."

"Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man."

"No one would talk much in society if he only knew how often he misunderstands others."

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

"Nothing is more damaging to a new truth than an old error."

"Nothing is more dreadful than ignorance in action."

"Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at."

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words... Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonplace; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead. It is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent that take generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they are new."

"One should only celebrate a happy ending; celebrations at the outset exhaust the joy and energy needed to urge us forward and sustain us in the long struggle. And of all celebrations a wedding is the worst; no day should be kept more quietly and humbly."

"Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune is always here."

"Only when we know little do we know anything; doubt grows with knowledge."

"People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were."

"People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work on us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will. If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries there would be but a small balance in my favor."

"Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep."

"Riches amassed in haste will diminish, but those collected by little and little will multiply."

"Science and art belong to the whole world, and before then vanish the barriers of nationality."

"Self knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made."

"Superstition is the poetry of life."

"Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art."

"The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them"

"The artist is like Sunday's child - he alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them."

"The artist who is not also a craftsman is no good; but, alas, most of our artists are nothing else."

"The connoisseur of art must be able to appreciate what is simply beautiful, but the common run of people are satisfied with ornament."

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation; the two keep pace in their downward tendency."

"The destiny of any nation, at any given time, depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty."

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth."

"The flowers of life are but visionary [illusions]. How many pass away and leave no trace behind! How few yield any fruit, and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough; and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?"

"The greatest happiness of the thinking man is to have fathomed what can be fathomed, and quietly to reverence what is unfathomable."

"The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last."

"The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality."

"The human mind will not be confined to any limits."

"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything."

"The man of understanding finds everything laughable."

"The man who cannot enjoy his own natural gifts in silence, and find his reward in the exercise of them, will generally find himself badly off."

"The mere observing of a thing is no use whatsoever. Observing turns into beholding, beholding to thinking, thinking into establishing connections, so that one may say that every attentive glance we cast on the world is an act of theorizing. However, this ought to be done consciously, with self-criticism, with freedom, and, to use a daring word, with irony."

"The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain."

"The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and the beginning of his life."

"The patriotism of antiquity becomes in modern societies a caricature. In antiquity, it developed naturally from the whole condition of a people, its youth, its situation, its culture - with us it is an awkward imitation. Our life demands, not separation from other nations, but constant intercourse; our city life is not that of the ancient city-state."

"The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence."

"The poet should size the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal."

"The present moment is a powerful deity."