Great Throughts Treasury

"A man may devote himself to death and destruction to save a nation; but no nation will devote itself to death and destruction to save mankind."

"A man of maxims only, is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that in the back of his head."

"A man?s desire is for the woman, but the woman?s desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."

"A man's desire is for the woman, but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."

"A man's as old as he's feeling. A woman as old as she looks."

"A maxim is a conclusion upon observation of matters of fact, and is merely speculative; a principle carries knowledge within itself, and is prospective."

"A nation to be great ought to be compressed in its increment by nations more civilized than itself."

"A mother is a mother still, the holiest thing alive."

"A pun will sometimes facilitate explanation, as thus;?the Understanding is that which stands under the phenomenon, and gives it objectivity. You know what a thing is by it. It is also worthy of remark, that the Hebrew word for the understanding, Bineh, comes from a root meaning between or distinguishing."

"A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory."

"A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night singeth a quiet tune."

"A picture is an intermediate something between a thought and a thing."

"A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn."

"A religion, that is, a true religion, must consist of ideas and facts both; not of ideas alone without facts, for then it would be mere Philosophy; - nor of facts alone without ideas, of which those facts are symbols, or out of which they arise, or upon which they are grounded: for then it would be mere History."

"A sight to dream of, not to tell!"

"A savage place! as holy and enchanted as e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted by woman wailing for her demon-lover!"

"A single thought is that which it is from other thoughts as a wave of the sea takes its form and shape from the waves which precede and follow it."

"A spring of love gush'd from my heart, and I bless'd them unaware."

"A wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile."

"A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"

"A stately pleasure-dome decree."

"A wild rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree."

"Ah why refuse the blameless bliss? Can danger lurk within a kiss?"

"About, about, in reel and rout the death-fires danced at night; the water, like a witch's oils, burnt green, and blue, and white"

"Acquaintance many, and conquaintance few, But for inquaintance I know only two - The friend I've wept and the maid I woo"

"A woman in a single state may be happy and may be miserable; but most happy, most miserable, these are epithets belonging to a wife."

"A woman's friendship borders more closely on love than man's. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts; whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment."

"Advice is like snow - the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind."

"Ah! well a-day! what evil looks had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung."

"Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny, and youth is vain; And to be wrothe with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain."

"All colors a suffusion from that light."

"All melodies the echoes of that voice."

"All Science is necessarily prophetic, so truly so, that the power of prophecy is the test, the infallible criterion, by which any presumed Science is ascertained to be actually and verily science. The Ptolemaic Astronomy was barely able to prognosticate a lunar eclipse; with Kepler and Newton came Science and Prophecy."

"All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--And winter slumbering in the open air, wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where Amaranths blow, have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye Amaranths! Bloom for whom ye may, for me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll: and would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, and hope without an object cannot live."

"All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness."

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights Whatever stirs this mortal frame All are but ministers of Love And feed His sacred flame."

"All well -defined, and several stinks."

"All men are born Platonic or Aristotelian, that is rational or irrational: the opinions and interpretations hardly affect the first, the facts and demonstrations will never get the seconds."

"Alone, alone, all all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on my soul in agony."

"Aloof with hermit-eye I scan the present works of present man ? A wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!"

"Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst."

"Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: and 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever it flung up momently the sacred river."

"An idea, in the highest sense of that word, cannot be conveyed but by a symbol."

"An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it."

"And a good south wind sprung up behind, The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends that plague thus thee! ? Why look'st thou so? ? With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross."

"Ancestral voices prophesying war."

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell a spirit from on high; but oh! more horrible than that is the curse n a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, and yet I could not die."

"An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars."

"And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise."

"And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise."