Great Throughts Treasury

"Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue when men have it whether they will or not."

"They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may; very well be suspected to do everything for Money."

"Without the consent of the world, a scandal doth not go deep; it is only a slight stroke upon the injured party, and returneth with the greater force upon those that gave it."

"A man man may dwell so long upon a thought that it may take him prisoner"

"A man that should call everything by its right name, would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy."

"A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else"

"A person may dwell so long upon a thought that it may take him prisoner."

"A princely mind will undo a private family."

"A husband without faults is a dangerous observer"

"A little learning misleadeth, and a great deal often stupifieth the understanding."

"A very great memory often forgetteth how much time is lost by repeating things of no use."

"A wife is to thank God her husband hath faults. ... A husband without faults is a dangerous observer."

"Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one."

"Could we know what men are most apt to remember, we might know what they are most apt to do."

"Ease is seldom got without some pains, but it is yet seldomer kept without them"

"Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught."

"Every single Act either weakeneth or improveth our Credit with other Men; and as an habit of being just to our Word will confirm, so an habit of too freely dispensing with it must necessarily destroy it"

"Explaining is generally half confessing."

"Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it."

"A prince who will not undergo the difficulty of understanding must undergo the danger of trusting."

"He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things. He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things."

"Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is good company along the way."

"If men considered how many things there are that riches cannot buy, they would not be so"

"If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers"

"In this Age, when it is said of a man, He knows how to live, it may be implied he is not very honest"

"In your clothes avoid too much gaudiness; do not value yourself upon an embroidered gown; and remember that a reasonable word, or an obliging look, will gain you more respect than all your fine trappings."

"It is a general Mistake to to think the Men we like are good for everything, and those we do not, good for nothing"

"It is ill-manners to silence a fool, and cruelty to let him go on."

"Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them"

"Love is a passion that hath friends in the garrison."

"Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms"

"Malice, like lust, when it is at the height, doth not know shame."

"Many men swallow the being cheated, but no man can ever endure to chew it."

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses but that horses may not be stolen"

"Men in business are in as much danger from those at work under them as from those that work against them."

"Men take more pains to hide than to mend themselves."

"Men that cannot entertain themselves want somebody, though they care for nobody."

"Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts"

"Misspending a man's time is a kind of self-homicide."

"Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding."

"Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady that neither of them care for."

"No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool"

"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side"

"Nothing is less forgiven than setting patterns men have no mind to follow."

"Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view."

"Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much."

"Some men's memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes"

"The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation."

"The best Qualification of a Prophet is to have a good Memory"

"The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past."