Great Throughts Treasury

"Novels do not force their fair readers to sin?they only instruct them how to sin; the consequences of which are fully detailed, and not in a way calculated to seduce any but weak minds: few of their heroines are happily disposed of."

"Open your mouth and purse cautiously, and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great."

"Pride, in boasting of family antiquity, makes duration stand for merit."

"Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits."

"Put this restriction on your pleasures: be cautious that they injure no being which has life."

"Scholars are frequently to be met with who are ignorant of nothing--saving their own ignorance."

"Silence is a trick when it imposes. Pedants and scholars, churchmen and physicians, abound in silent pride."

"Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy."

"Suicides pay the world a bad compliment. Indeed, it may so happen that the world has been beforehand with them in incivility. Granted. Even then the retaliation is at their own expense."

"Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations, the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed."

"Take care to be an economist in prosperity; there is no fear of your being one in adversity."

"That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, ?I have enough,? is the highest attainment of philosophy. Happiness consists, not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little always has enough."

"The human mind, in proportion as it is deprived of external resources, sedulously labors to find within itself the means of happiness, learns to rely with confidence on its own exertions, and gains with greater certainty the power of being happy."

"The ill usage of every minute is a new record against us in heaven."

"The lust of dominion innovates so imperceptibly that we become complete despots before our wanton abuse of power is perceived; the tyranny first exercised in the nursery is exhibited in various shapes and degrees in every stage of our existence."

"The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie."

"The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed."

"The purse of the patient frequently protracts his cure."

"The purse of the patient often protracts his case."

"The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose."

"The sluggard is a living insensible."

"The weak may be joked out of anything but their weakness."

"There appears to exist a greater desire to live long than to live well! Measure by man's desires, he cannot live long enough; measure by his good deeds, and he has not lived long enough; measure by his evil deeds, and he has lived too long."

"Though fancy may be the patient's complaint, necessity is often the doctor's."

"Though our donations are made to please ourselves, we insist, upon those who receive our alms being pleased with them."

"Troops of furies march in the drunkard's triumph."

"Truth lies in a small compass! The Aristotelians say, all truth is contained in Aristotle, in one place or another. Galileo makes Simplicius say so, but shows the absurdity of that speech by answering all truth is contained in a lesser compass, namely, in the alphabet."

"Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none."

"We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess. Reading soon becomes fatiguing unless undertaken with an eye to our own advantage or that of others, and when it does not enrich the mind with new ideas; but this habit is easily acquired by exercise, and then books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments."

"When ill news comes too late to be serviceable to your neighbor, keep it to yourself."

"When soured by disappointment, we must endeavor to pursue some fixed and pleasing course of study, that there may be no blank leaf in our book of life?. Painful and disagreeable ideas vanish from the mind that can fix its attention upon any subject. The sight of a noble and interesting object, the study of a useful science, the varied pictures of the different revolutions exhibited in the history of mankind, the improvements in any art, are capable of arresting the attention and charming every care; and it is thus that man becomes sociable with himself; it is thus that he finds his best friend within his own bosom."

"When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the unscrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better."

"Who conquers indolence conquers all other hereditary sins."

"Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself; then it will be worth listening to."