Great Throughts Treasury

"Some have been beaten till they know What wood a cudgel 's of by th' blow; Some kick'd until they can feel whether A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather."

"Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure."

"Some who had received a liberal education at the Colleges of Unreason, and taken the highest degrees in hypothetics, which are their principal study."

"Spontaneity is only a term for man's ignorance of the gods"

"Still amorous and fond and billing, like Philip and Mary on a shilling."

"Still his tongue ran on; the less weight it bore with greater ease; and with its everlasting clack, set all men's ears upon the rack."

"Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished."

"Surely the glory of finally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome matter should be as great as that of making an important discovery. The trouble is that the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had destroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself too."

"'T was Presbyterian true blue."

"Taking numbers into account, I should think more mental suffering had been undergone in the streets leading from St George's, Hanover Square, than in the condemned cells of Newgate."

"Than tools of sharp or subtle edges,"

"The advantage of doing one’s praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places."

"The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor."

"The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes"

"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."

"The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday."

"The composer is seldom a great theorist; the theorist is never a great composer. Each is equally fatal to and essential in the other."

"The course of true anything does not run smooth."

"The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt."

"The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well."

"The extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west, become the same No Indian prince has to his palace - More followers than a thief to the gallows"

"The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it."

"The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment."

"The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the Kingdom of Heaven, rather than without."

"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

"The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived."

"The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too."

"The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeares are not the greatest - they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is ineffable - it must be felt from one person to another, it cannot be articulated."

"The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions."

"The hen is an egg's way of producing another egg."

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

"The law can take a purse in open court, While it condemns a less delinquent for't."

"The limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far."

"The major sin is the sin of being born."

"The mere fact that a thought or idea can be expressed articulately in words involves that it is still open to question; and the mere fact that a difficulty can be definitely conceived involves that it is open to solution."

"The money men make lives after them."

"The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world."

"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust."

"The most perfect humour and irony is generally quite unconscious."

"The New Jerusalem, when it comes, will probably be found so far to resemble the old as to stone its prophets freely."

"The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously."

"The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them."

"The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them."

"The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas."

"The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion."

"The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money."

"The slighter and more inconsistent the opinions of the obstinate man are, the faster he holds them, otherwise they would fall asunder of themselves: for opinions that are false he holds with more strictness and assurance than those that are true. - He is resolved to understand no man's reason but his own, because he finds no man can understand his but himself. His wits are like a sack, which the proverb says, is tied faster before it is full, than when it is; and his opinions are like plants that grow upon rocks, that stick fast, though they have no rooting. His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh's heart, and is proof against all sorts of judgments whatsoever."

"The sun had long since in the lap Of Thetis taken out his nap, And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn."

"The supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down is childish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blame on reviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundred reviewers."

"The tendency of modern science is to reduce proof to absurdity by continually reducing absurdity to proof."