Great Throughts Treasury

"We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy. - It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke."

"We must consider how very little history there is; I mean real, authentic history. - That certain kings reigned, and certain battles were fought, we can depend on as true; but all the coloring, all the philosophy of history is conjecture."

"We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting."

"Were a man not to marry a second time, it might be concluded that his first wife had given him a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife, he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."

"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."

"Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if we suppose it put to its best use by those that posses it, seems not much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that, with regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues to pleasure, nor block up the passages to anguish. Disease and infirmity still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury, or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment, enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm error, and harden stupidity."

"We should pass on from crime to crime, heedless and remorseless, if misery did not stand in our way, and our own pains admonish us of our folly."

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

"What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed."

"What is easy is seldom excellent."

"Whatever advantage or enjoyment we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature, is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed and regretted."

"What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more."

"Whatever be the motive of an insult it is always best to overlook it; for folly scarcely can deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect."

"Whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find reasons for rejecting than embracing."

"Whatever makes the past or future predominate over the present, exalts us in the scale of thinking beings."

"When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment."

"When a king asked Euclid, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner, he was answered, that there was no royal way to geometry. Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money; but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement."

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

"When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation."

"When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly."

"When an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best."

"When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints."

"When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live."

"When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land."

"When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped."

"When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am."

"When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality."

"When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them."

"When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four."

"When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever."

"Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites."

"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."

"Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates."

"When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather."

"When we see the avaricious and crafty taking companions to their tables, and their beds, without any inquiry but after farms and money; or the giddy and thoughtless uniting themselves for life to those whom they have only seen by the light of tapers; when parents make articles for children without inquiring after their consent; when some marry for heirs to disappoint their brothers; and others throw themselves into the arms of those whom they do not love, because they have found themselves rejected where they were more solicitous to please; when some marry because their servants cheat them; some because they squander their own money; some because their houses are pestered with companv; some because they will live like other people; and some because they are sick of themselves, we are not so much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes unhappy, as that it appears so little loaded with calamity, and cannot but conclude that society has something in itself eminently agreeable to human nature, when we find its pleasures so great, that even the ill choice of a companion can hardly over­balance them. - Those, therefore, that rail against matrimony, should be informed, that they are neither to wonder, or repine, that a contract begun on such principles has ended in disappointment."

"While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best."

"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

"Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue."

"Where there is emulation, there will be vanity; where there is vanity, there will be folly."

"Whoever shall review his life will find that the whole tenor of his conduct has been determined by some accident of no apparent moment."

"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison."

"Whoever envies another confesses his superiority."

"Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel."

"Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things."

"Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature."

"Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything."

"Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost."

"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others."

"Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self-esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected, without any remorse of conscience or reproach from reason."