Great Throughts Treasury

"It seems to me that the one privilege of friendship is "to quench the fiery darts of the wicked," to make the best of friends, to encourage and believe in them, to hand on the pleasant things."

"The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortune, but its fears."

"Interests are anchors, and I believe they will bring peace and even happiness in the end."

"Influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and that the best kind of influence belongs to those who do not even know that they possess it."

"What we have to do is to see as deep as we can into the truth of things, not to invent paradises of thought, sheltered gardens, from which grief and suffering shall tear us, naked and protesting; but to gaze into the heart of God, and then to follow as faithfully as we can the imperative voice that speaks within the soul."

"It is astonishing how the act of placing our own will as far as possible in unison with the Will of God restores our tranquility."

"The essence of religious liberty is that men should feel that there is nothing whatever that stands between themselves and God."

"The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way."

"Religious worship is only as it were a postern by the side of the great portals of beauty and nobility and truth. One whose heart is filled with a yearning mystery at the sight of the starry heavens, who can adore the splendor of noble actions, courageous deeds, patient affections, who can see and love the beauty so abundantly shed abroad in the world… he can at all these moments draw near to God, and open his soul to the influx of the Divine Spirit."

"It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in."

"A man who reads at all, reads just as he eats, sleeps, and takes exercise,"

"A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one's movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation."

"A well begun is half ended."

"Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping."

"All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape."

"As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow."

"Because of a friend, life is a little stronger, fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be near or far. If the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is far away he still is there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honor, to admire, to love."

"Congenial labor is essence of happiness."

"I am sure it is one's duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this."

"I don't like authority, at least I don't like other people's authority."

"I believe in instinct, not reason. When reason is right, nine times out of ten it is impotent, and when it prevails, nine times out of ten it is wrong."

"Congenial labor is the secret of happiness."

"I expect that all of us get pretty much what we deserve of appreciation."

"Do you know the times when one seems to stick fast in circumstances like the fly in the jam-pot? It can't be helped, and I suppose the best thing to do is to lay in a good store of jam!"

"I must consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand--that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there--she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty country. Have you ever been there?""

"I never enter a new company without the hope that I may discover a friend, perhaps the friend, sitting there with an expectant smile. That hope survives a thousand disappointments."

"I have known some quite good people who were unhappy, but never an interested person who was unhappy."

"Keeping up appearances is the most expensive thing in the world."

"I think I feel rather differently about sympathy to what seems the normal view. I like just to feel it is there, but not always expressed."

"Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still, and wider, shall thy bounds be set; God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!"

"People who deal with life generously and large-heartedly go on multiplying relationships to the end."

"One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do."

"People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way."

"Let those whose hearts and hands are strong tell eager tales of mighty deeds; enough if my sequestered song to hush'd and twilight gardens leads! Clear waters, drawn from secret wells phance may fevered lips assuage; the tales an elder pilgrim tells to such as go on pilgrimage. Such the soft path my words would trace, thus with the moving waters move; so leave, across the ocean's face, a glimmering stair to hope and love."

"Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another."

"The friend is the person whom one is in need of and by whom one is needed."

"The awful penalty of success is the haunting dread of subsequent failure."

"The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn't your real life."

"The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter."

"What a strange power the perception of beauty is! It seems to ebb and flow like some secret tide, independent alike of health and disease, of joy or sorrow. There are times in our lives when we seem to go singing on our way, and when the beauty of the world sets itself like a quiet harmony to the song we uplift."

"Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene."

"There remain times when one can only endure. One lives on, one doesn't die, and the only thing that one can do, is to fill one's mind and time as far as possible with the concerns of other people. It doesn't bring immediate peace, but it brings the dawn nearer."

"When you get to my age life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory."