Great Throughts Treasury

"Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of you. O, Father, give to your child what he himself knows not how to ask. Teach me to pray. Pray yourself in me."

"Make not a bosom friend of a melancholy, sad soul. - He will be sure to aggravate thine adversity and to lessen thy prosperity. - He goes always heavily loaded, and thou must bear half."

"Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach."

"Most people I ask little from. I try to give them much, and expect nothing in return and I do very well in the bargain."

"No more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in; for it is God who has placed us there, and who holds us in his arms. Can we be unsafe where he has placed us?"

"Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies."

"O Lord, I do most cheerfully commit all unto Thee."

"Oh! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak."

"Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity."

"Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day."

"Resign every forbidden joy; restrain every wish that is not referred to God's will; banish all eager desires, all anxiety; desire only the will of God; seek him alone and supremely, and you will find peace."

"Should we feel at times disheartened and discouraged, a confiding thought, a simple movement of heart towards God will renew our powers. Whatever He may demand of us, He will give us at the moment the strength and the courage that we need."

"So long as we are full of self we are shocked at the faults of others. Let us think often of our own sin, and we shall be lenient to the sins of others."

"Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of this pulse,--in short, as any part of his being is at least subjected to the action of the will."

"Such a soul (one who has forgotten itself in God) is not blinded to its own faults or indifferent to its own errors; it is more conscious of them than ever, and increased light shows them in plainer form, but this self-knowledge comes from God, and therefore it is not restless or uneasy. --Fenélon"

"Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell God your troubles, that God may comfort you; tell God your joys, that God may sober them; tell God your longings, that God may purify them; tell God your dislikes, that God may help you conquer them; talk to God of your temptations, that God may shield you from them: show God the wounds of your heart, that God may heal them. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. Talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration say just what you think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God."

"The art of cookery is the art of poisoning mankind, by rendering the appetite still importunate, when the wants of nature are supplied."

"The best use one can make of his mind is to distrust it."

"The great point is to renounce your own wisdom by simplicity of walk, and to be ready to give up the favor, esteem, and approbation of every one, whenever the path in which God leads you passes that way."

"The greatest defect of common education is, that we are in the habit of putting pleasure all on one side, and weariness on the other; all weariness in study, all pleasure in idleness."

"The history of the world suggests that without love of God there is little likelihood of a love for man that does not become corrupt."

"The kingdom of God which is within us consists in our willing whatever God wills, always, in everything, and without reservation; and thus His kingdom comes; for His will is then done as it is in heaven, since we will nothing but what is dictated by His sovereign pleasure."

"The most essential point is lowliness."

"The most virtuous of all men, says Plato, is he that contents himself with being virtuous without seeking to appear so."

"The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips."

"The presence God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose."

"The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation."

"The smallest things become great when God requires them of us; they are small only in themselves; they are always great when they are done for God."

"The true genius that conducts a state is he, who doing nothing himself, causes everything to be done; he contrives, he invents, he foresees the future; he reflects on what is past; he distributes and proportions things; he makes early preparations; he incessantly arms himself to struggle against fortune, as a swimmer against a rapid stream of water; he is attentive night and day, that he may leave nothing to chance."

"The voluptuous and effeminate are never brave; they have no courage in time of danger."

"The wind of God is always blowing... but you must hoist your sail."

"The youth who, like a woman, loves to adorn his person, has renounced all claim to wisdom and to glory; glory is due to those only who dare to associate with pain, and have trampled pleasure under their feet."

"There are some people who think that they should be always mourning, that they should put a continual constraint upon themselves, and feel a disgust for those amusements to which they are obliged to submit. For my own part, I confess that I know not how to conform myself to these rigid notions. I prefer something more simple, which I also think would be more pleasing to God."

"There is a great difference between a lofty spirit and a right spirit. A lofty spirit excites admiration by its profoundness; but only a right spirit achieves salvation and happiness by its stability and integrity. Do not conform your ideas to those of the world. Scorn the "intellectual" as much as the world esteems it. What men consider intellectual is a certain facility to produce brilliant thoughts. Nothing is more vain. We make an idol of our intellect as a woman who believes herself beautiful worships her face. We take pride in our own thoughts. We must reject not only human cleverness, but also human prudence, which seems so important and so profitable. Then we may enter - like little children, with candor and innocence of worldly ways - into the simplicity of faith; and with humility and a horror of sin we may enter into the holy passion of the cross."

"There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true."

"There were some who said that a man at the point of death was more free than all others, because death breaks every bond, and over the dead the united world has no power."

"This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom--the very fashion of which "passeth away.""

"Time spent in prayer is never wasted."

"To be content with even the best people, we must be contented with little and bear a great deal. Those who are most perfect have many imperfections, and we have great faults; between the two, mutual toleration becomes very difficult."

"To pray. . . is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire. He who desires not from the bottom of his heart, offers a deceitful prayer."

"To realize God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation."

"Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble."

"Violent excitement exhausts the mind, and leaves it withered and sterile."

"We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs."

"We desire that God would give us the death-stroke; but we long to die without pain; we would die to our own will by the power of the will itself; we want to lose all and still hold all. Ah! what agony, what distress, when God has brought us to the end of our strength! We faint like a patient under a painful surgical operation. But the comparison is nought, for the object of the surgeon is to give us life -- that of God to make us die."

"We must avoid fastidiousness; neatness, when it is moderate, is a virtue; but when it is carried to an extreme, it narrows the mind."

"We must truly serve those whom we appear to command; we must bear with their imperfections, correct them with gentleness and patience, and lead them in the way to heaven."

"When kings interfere in matters of religion, they enslave instead of protecting it."

"When tempted, the shortest and surest way is to act like a little child at the breast; when we show it a frightful monster, it shrinks back and buries its face in its mother's bosom, that it may no longer behold it."

"Why art thou troubled and anxious about many things? One thing is needful--to love Him and to sit attentively at His feet."