Great Throughts Treasury

"Better a certain peace than a hoped for victory."

"Apprehensions are greater in proportion as things are unknown."

"Better late than never."

"Friendships ought to be immortal, hostilities mortal."

"Experience is the teacher of fools."

"Seldom men are blessed with good fortune and good sense at the same time."

"The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame."

"Present sufferings seem far greater to men than those they merely dread."

"To those to whom war is necessary it is just."

"Events of great consequence often spring from trifling circumstances. "

"The mob is either a humble slave or a cruel master."

"Our friendships should be immortal, our enmities mortal."

"Envy is blind, and has no other quality but that of detracting from virtue. "

"Avarice and luxury, those pests which have ever been the ruin of every great state. "

"Men's minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves. "

"Toil and pleasure, in their natures opposite, are yet linked together in a kind of necessary connection."

"Necessity is the last and strongest weapon. "

"Prosperity engenders sloth. "

"No crime [evil] is founded upon reason. "

"The best known evil is the most tolerable. "

"Adversity makes men remember religion [God]."

"Truth is often eclipsed but never extinguished."

"Superstition brings the gods into even the smallest matters."

"No law is quite appropriate for all."

"In difficult and hopeless situations the boldest plans are the safest."

"Men's plans should be regulated by the circumstances, not circumstances by the plans. "

"Men are least safe from what success induces them not to fear."

"Men are seldom blessed with good fortune and good sense at the same time."

"We survive on adversity and perish in ease and comfort."

"Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays itself. "

"Envy, like fire, soars upward."

"The worst kind of shame is being ashamed of frugality or poverty."

"Men are slower to recognise blessings than misfortunes."

"No man likes to be surpassed by those of this own level. "

"He is truly a man who will not permit himself to be unduly elated when fortune's breeze is favorable, or cast down when it is adverse."

"There is nothing that is more often clothed in an attractive garb than a false creed."

"There is nothing man will not attempt when great enterprises hold out the promise of great rewards."

"Passions are generally roused from great conflict. "

"The state is suffering from two opposite vices, avarice and luxury; two plagues which, in the past, have been the ruin of every great empire."

"Such is the nature of crowds: either they are humble and servile or arrogant and dominating. They are incapable of making moderate use of freedom, which is the middle course, or of keeping it."

"False shame only is harmful."

"Once let good faith be abandoned, and all social existence would perish."

"Nothing moves more quickly than scandal."

"Bad beginnings, bad endings."

"Great contests generally excite great animosities."

"What is honorable is also safest."

"Men's minds are too ingenious in palliating guilt in themselves."

"It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted."

"The injury done to character is greater than can be estimated."

"You need only a show of war to have peace."