Great Throughts Treasury

"Mellow nuts have the hardest rind."

"Meat eaten without either mirth or music is ill of digestion."

"Mr. Sampson, you forget the difference between Plato and Zenocrates."

"My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor."

"My mind to me a kingdom is. I am rightful monarch; and, God to aid, I will not be dethroned by any rebellious passion that may rear its standard against me."

"My dear, be a good man ? be virtuous ? be religious ? be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here. ...God bless you all."

"My hope, my heaven, my trust must be, my gentle guide, in following thee."

"Ne'er Was flattery lost on poet's ear; A simple race! They waste their toil For the vain tribute of a smile."

"No pale gradations quench his ray, no twilight dews his wrath allay."

"No word of commiseration can make a burden feel one feather's weight lighter to the slave who must carry it."

"Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden."

"Norman saw on English oak. On English neck a Norman yoke; Norman spoon to English dish, and England ruled as Normans wish; blithe world in England never will be more, till England's rid of all the four."

"Nothing could be more gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had they not been marked by a predominant air of haughtiness, easily acquired by the exercise of unresisted authority."

"Nothing perhaps increases by indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading, especially under such opportunities of gratifying it."

"Nothing is more the child of art than a garden."

"November?s sky is chill and drear, November?s leaf is red and sear."

"Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette."

"O fading honours of the dead! O high ambition, lowly laid!"

"Now I protest to thee, gentle reader, that I entirely dissent from Francisco de Ubeda in this matter, and hold it the most useful quality of my pen, that it can speedily change from grave to gay, and from description and dialogue to narrative and character. So that, if my quill display no other propertoies of its mothergoose than her mutability, truly I shall be well pleased; and I conceive that you, my worthy friend, will have no occasion for discontent. From the jargon, therefore, of the Highland gillies, I pass to the character of their Chief. It is an important examination, and therefore, like Dogberry, we must spare no wisdom."

"O Caledonia! stern and wild, meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, land of my sires! what mortal hand can e'er untie the filial band, that knits me to thy rugged strand! Look back, and smile on perils past."

"O, the tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

"O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!"

"O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!"

"O, Woman! in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please, and variable as the shade by the light quivering aspen made; when pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel thou!"

"Of all the vices drinking is the most incompatible with greatness"

"Of all the train, none escaped except Wamba, who showed upon the occasion much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense."

"Oh for a blast of that dread horn On Fontarabian echoes borne!"

"Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!"

"Oh, Brignal banks are wild and fair, and Greta woods are green, and you may gather garlands there would grace a summer's queen."

"Oh, many a shaft at random sent finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken may soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!"

"On his bold visage middle age had slightly pressed its signet sage, yet had not quenched the open truth and fiery vehemence of youth; forward and frolic glee was there, the will to do, the soul to dare, the sparkling glance, soon blown to fire, of hasty love or headlong ire."

"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."

"Oh, poverty parts good company."

"Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the West, through all the wide Border his steed was the best."

"Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighborhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft."

"One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior."

"One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honour or observation."

"Patriotism - Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd as home his footsteps he hath turn'd from wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; for him no Minstrel raptures swell; high though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim; despite those titles, power, and pelf, the wretch, concentred all in self, living, shall forfeit fair renown, and, doubly dying, shall go down to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung."

"Our master was too ready to fight, said the Jester, and Athelstane was not ready enough, and no other person was ready at all."

"Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langor, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance."

"Pride and jealousy there was in his eye, for his life had been spent in asserting rights which were constantly liable to invasion; and the prompt, fiery, and resolute disposition of the man, had been kept constantly upon the alert by the circumstances of his situation."

"Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broom-stick to a witch, or a wand to a conjuror."

"Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line."

"Real valor consists not in being insensible to danger; but in being prompt to confront and disarm it."

"Randolph, thy wreath has lost a rose."

"Respect was mingled with surprise, And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel."

"Revenge is a feast for the gods!"

"Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit."

"Revenge is the sweetest morsel to the mouth, that ever was cooked in hell."

"Revenge, dear sir, revenge, which, despite being a sin gentleman like wine, orgies, with their et cetera, is just as un-Christian, and not just without bloodshed. It 'better to climb over the fence of a park for appostare a lady or a damsel, who shoot an old man."