Great Throughts Treasury

"There would not be so many open mouths if there were not so many open ears."

"Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

"Every day is a little life, and our whole life is but a day repeated. Therefore live every day as if it would be the last. Those that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend it are desperate."

"Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment."

"He is great enough who is his own master."

"Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave. Our birth is nothing but our death begun."

"Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass may grow and his steed starve. As, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting; laboring too much to little purpose; as good no scythe as no edge."

"As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn."

"A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends."

"Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little,--diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God's mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness."

"Garments that have once one rent in them are subject to be torn on every nail, and glasses that are once cracked are soon broken; such is man's good name once tainted with just reproach."

"A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was."