Great Throughts Treasury

"No man is more cheated than the selfish man."

"Nothing dies so hard, or rallies so often as intolerance."

"No man is such a conqueror as the man who has defeated himself."

"Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves."

"Refinement is the lifting of one's self upwards from the merely sensual, the effort of the soul to etherealize the common wants and uses of life."

"Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years."

"Self-denial does not belong to religion as characteristic of it; it belongs to human life. The lower nature must always be denied when you are trying to rise to a higher sphere... Of all joyous experiences there are none like which spring from true religion."

"Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself."

"Sorrow makes men sincere."

"Reputation is sometimes as wide as the horizon, when character is but the point of a needle. Character is what one really is; reputation what others believe him to be."

"Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is a last year’s nest, from which the bird has flown."

"The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game."

"The love of knowledge in a young mind is almost a warrant against the infirm excitement of passions and vices."

"The head learns new things, but the heart forever more practices old experiences."

"The prouder a man is, the more he thinks he deserves, and the more he thinks he deserves, the less he really does deserve."

"The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a 'but.'"

"The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom."

"The rarest feeling that ever lights a human face is the contentment of a loving soul."

"The truest self-respect is not to think of self."

"The soul is a temple; and God is silently building it by night and by day. Precious thoughts are building it; disinterested love is building it; all-penetrating faith is building it."

"The reason that men are so slow to confess their vices is because they have not yet abandoned them."

"The way to avoid evil is not by maiming our passions, but by compelling them to yield their vigor to our mortal nature. Thus they become, as in the ancient fable, the harnessed steeds which bear the chariot of the sun."

"The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope."

"The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life."

"The whole of life and experience goes to show, that right or wrong doing, whether as to the physical or the spiritual nature, is sure in the end to meet its appropriate reward or punishment. Penalties may be delayed but they are sure to come."

"There are joys which long to be ours. God sends then thousand truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away."

"There is no faculty of the human soul so persistent and universal as that of hatred."

"There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child."

"There is no such thing as white lies; a lie is as black as a coalpit, and twice as foul."

"There is no such thing as white lies; a lie is as black as a coal-pit, and twice as foul."

"There is no such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear. No man can learn patience except by going out into the hurly-burly world, and taking life just as it blows. Patience is but lying to and riding out the gale."

"There is nothing that is so wonderfully created as the human soul. There is something of God in it. We are infinite in the future, though we are finite in the past."

"There is not a person we employ who does not, like ourselves, desire recognition, praise, gentleness, forbearance, patience."

"There never was a person who do anything worth doing that did not receive more than he gave."

"There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear; and there is damnation in the things that wicked men love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what winds are to oceans and malarial regions, which waft away the elements of disease, and bring new elements of health. And where free speech is stopped miasma is bred, and death comes fast."

"There is nothing which vanity does not desecrate."

"Thorough selfishness destroys or paralyzes enjoyment. A heart made selfish by the contest for wealth is like a citadel stormed in war, utterly shattered."

"True elegance becomes the more so as it approaches simplicity."

"True obedience is true liberty."

"Victories that are cheap are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting."

"True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training."

"Vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of success of any sort."

"Truthfulness is godliness."

"When there is love in the heart there are rainbows in the eyes, which cover every black cloud with gorgeous hues."

"While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed."

"A fortune is usually the greatest of misfortunes to children. It takes the muscles out of the limbs, the brain out of the head, and virtue out of the heart... In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich."

"A grindstone that has not grit in it, how long would it take to sharpen an axe? And affairs that had not grit in them, how long would they take to make a man?"

"What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose."

"A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad-track - an inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity."

"A law is valuable not because it is a law, but because there is right in it."