Great Throughts Treasury

"God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages."

"He who is false to the present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and you will see the effect when the weaving of a lifetime is unraveled."

"I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, and receives new truth as an angel for Heaven."

"Ideas are the mightiest influence on earth. One great thought breathed in to a man may regenerate him."

"In the long run, truth is aided by nothing so much as by opposition."

"It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge."

"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours."

"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds."

"It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great."

"It is the mind which does the work of the world, so that the more there is of mind, the more work will be accomplished."

"Literature is "The expression of a nation's mind in writing.""

"Nothing which has entered into our experience is ever lost."

"Our affections are our life. We live by them; they supply our warmth."

"Secret study, silent thought, is, after all, the mightiest agent in human affairs."

"Sensuality is the grave of the soul."

"The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought."

"The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey."

"The mind in proportion as it is cut off from free communication with nature, with revelation, with God, with itself, loses its life, just as the body droops when debarred from the air and the cheering light from heaven."

"The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed. Discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age."

"The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves."

"The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defense around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms."

"They who have read about everything are thought to understand everything, but it is not always so; reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections - we must chew them over again."

"Understand your antagonist before you answer him... Discussion, even if story, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age."

"War is the concentration of all human crimes. It turns man into a beast of prey."

"We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure."

"What distinguishes war is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man."