Great Throughts Treasury

"Th' past always looks betther thin it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here."

"Trust everybody - but cut the cards."

"A man's idea in a card game is war — cruel, devastating and pitiless. A lady's idea of it is a combination of larceny, embezzlement and burglary."

"A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable."

"A fanatic is a man that does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case."

"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large."

"A firm belief attracts facts. They come out iv' holes in th' ground an' cracks in th' wall to support belief, but run away fr'm doubt."

"A rayformer thinks he was ilicted because he was a rayformer, whin th thruth iv th matther is he was ilicted because no wan knew him."

"Alcohol is necessary for a man so that he can have a good opinion of himself, undisturbed be the facts."

"An appeal is when ye ask wan court to show its contempt for another court."

"Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. Rule #1 in journalism."

"Don't jump on a man unless he is down."

"I see gr-reat changes takin' place ivry day, but no change at all ivry fifty years."

"If ye live enough befure thirty ye won't care to live at all afther fifty."

"High finance isn't burglary or obtaining money by false pretenses, but rather a judicious selection from the best features of those fine arts."

"In England a man is presoomed to be innocent till he's proved guilty an' they take it f 'r granted he's guilty. In this counthry a man is presoomed to be guilty ontil he's proved guilty an' afther that he's presoomed to be innocent."

"It [Thanksgiving] was founded by the Puritans to give thanks for bein' preserved from the Indians, an' we keep it to give thanks we are preserved from the Puritans."

"It is more comfortable to feel that we are a slight improvement on a monkey than such a fallin' off from the angels."

"I wonder why you can always read a doctor's bill and you can never read his prescription."

"It don't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it."

"Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open."

"Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals."

"Many a man that couldn't direct ye to th' drug store on th' corner when he was thirty will get a respectful hearin' when age has further impaired his mind."

"No, sir, th dimmycratic party aint on speakin terms with itsilf. Whin ye see two men with white neckties go into a sthreet car an set in opposite corners while wan mutthers Thraiter an th other hisses Miscreent ye can bet theyre two dimmycratic leaders thryin to reunite th gran ol party."

"No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns."

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives."

"Opportunity knocks at every man's door once. On some men's door it hammers till it breaks down the door and then it goes in and wakes him up if he's asleep, and ever afterward it works for him as a night watchman."

"Th' affiction iv th' American people is always aimed thrue an' is invaryable fatal."

"Th' dead ar-re always pop'lar. I knowed a society wanst to vote a monyment to a man an' refuse to help his fam'ly, all in wan night."

"One of the strange things about life is that the poor, who need money the most, are the very ones that never have it."

"Stories are meant to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."

"Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf. Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure. But th' shelf is th' main thing."

"The last man that makes a joke owns it."

"The only good husbands stay bachelors: They're too considerate to get married."

"Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, conthrols th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward."

"The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here."

"Th' prisidincy is th' highest office in th' gift iv th people. Th' vice-prisidincy is th' next highest an' the lowest. It isn't a crime exactly. Ye can't be sint to jail f r it, but it's a kind iv a disgrace."

"The time is comin' whin not more thin hath iv us'll be rale, an' th' rest'll be rubber, (plastic!)"

"The world is not growing worse and it is not growing better - it is just turning around as usual."

"The Puritans gave thanks for being preserved from the Indians, and we give thanks for being preserved from the Puritans."

"There are no friends at cards or world politics."

"Vice is such a hideous creature, that the more you see of it the better you like it."

"What is instinct? It is the natural tendency in one when filled with dismay to turn to his wife."

"There ain't any news in being good. You might write the doings of all the convents of the world on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare."

"Vice ... is a creature of such heejous mien ... that th' more ye see it th' betther ye like it."

"Vice is a creature of such hideous mien... that the more you see it the better you like it."

"Whin a man gets to be my age, he ducks political meetin's, an' reads th' papers an' weighs th' ividence an' th' argymints - pro-argymints an' con-argymints, an' makes up his mind ca'mly, an' votes th' Dimmycratic Ticket."

"You can lead a man up to the university, but you can't make him think."