Great Throughts Treasury

"It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

"It is foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife."

"It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"It is indeed at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor and fictitious benevolence."

"It is much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear, and is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always prosperous."

"It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy without physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art."

"It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination."

"It is observed of gold, in an old epigram, that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it is to be in sorrow."

"It is necessary to hope, though hope should be always deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."

"It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat."

"It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached."

"It is observed in the golden verses of Pythagoras that power is never far from necessity. The vigor of the human mind quickly appears when there is no longer any place for doubt and hesitation, when diffidence is absorbed in the sense of danger, or overwhelmed by some resistless passion."

"It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other."

"It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them."

"It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for tomorrow."

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them."

"It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity."

"It may be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions, too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself."

"It matters not how a man dies but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

"It is the just doom of laziness and a gluttony to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquility."

"It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood."

"It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief"

"It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive... that the mind might perform its functions without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present."

"It is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things."

"It was perhaps ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that no individual should be of so much importance as to cause, by his retirement or death, any chasm in the world."

"Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect."

"John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do."

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not."

"Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present."

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength."

"Judgment is forced upon us by experience."

"Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today, because you have written down what it cost yesterday."

"Knowledge always desires increase: it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself."

"Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas."

"Language is the dress of thought."

"Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas."

"Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with."

"Learn that the present hour alone is man's."

"Languages are the pedigree of nations."

"Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood"

"Learning once made popular is no longer learning; it has the appearance of something which we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes."

"Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil where he is known."

"Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles."

"Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction."

"Let observation with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life."

"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich."

"Let them call it mischief; Then it is past and prosper'd, 'twill be virtue."

"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate."

"Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."