Great Throughts Treasury

"Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain, Had locked the source of softer woe, And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the rising tear to flow"

"We are like the herb which flourisheth most when trampled upon"

"War's a fearsome thing. They'll be cunning that catches me at this wark again."

"We beg leave to transport the reader to the back-parlour of the post-master's house at Fairport, where his wife, he himself being absent, was employed in assorting for delivery the letters which had come by the Edinburgh post. This is very often in country towns the period of the day when gossips find it particularly agreeable to call on the man or woman of letters, in order, from the outside of the epistles, and, if they are not belied, occasionally from the inside also, to amuse themselves with gleaning information, or forming conjectures about the correspondence and affairs of their neighbours. Two females of this description were, at the time we mention, assisting, or impeding, Mrs. Mailsetter in her official duty."

"We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt"

"What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?"

"We resign to civil society our natural rights of self-defense only on condition that the ordinances of law should protect us."

"What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are."

"We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery."

"What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it."

"When a man hasn't a good reason for doing a thing, he has a good reason for letting it alone."

"What remains? cried Ivanhoe; "Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name.""

"When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us, how difficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search, how certain to be neglected by all who regard their ease; how liable to be diverted, altogether dried up, by the invasions of barbarism; can I look forward without wonder and astonishment to the lot of a succeeding generation on whom knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded; fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life; establishing and overthrowing religions; erecting and destroying kingdoms."

"When, musing on companions gone, we doubly feel ourselves alone."

"When we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o' our ain, we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns - But naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon."

"When true friends meet in adverse hour; 'tis like a sunbeam through a shower. A watery way an instant seen, the darkly closing clouds between."

"When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield."

"When Israel, of the Lord belov'd, Out of the land of bondage came, Her fathers' God before her mov'd, An awful guide in smoke and flame."

"When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone."

"Where lives the man that has not tried How mirth can into folly glide, And folly into sin!"

"Who o'er the herd would wish to reign, Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain! Vain as the leaf upon the stream, And fickle as a changeful dream; Fantastic as a woman's mood, And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood. Thou many-headed monster thing, Oh who would wish to be thy king!"

"Widowed wife and wedded maid."

"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!"

"With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye."

"With head upraised, and look intent, and eye and ear attentive bent, and locks flung back, and lips apart, like monument of Grecian art, in listening mood, she seemed to stand, the guardian Naiad of the strand."

"Within that awful volume lies the mystery, of mysteries!"

"Woman's faith and woman's trust, Write the characters in dust."

"Where 's the coward that would not dare To fight for such a land?"

"Where, where was Roderick then! One blast upon his bugle-horn were worth a thousand men."

"Where's the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land?"

"Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours-ambition is the serious business of life."

"Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow."

"Wretch who is only interested in his own reputation to lose a neighborhood and when they die, die like a second is from the dust and dirt to come back. Epkih not a will honor him one."

"You have power, rank, command, influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half so much as your slightest wish."

"You will, I trust, resemble a forest plant, which has indeed, by some accident, been brought up in the greenhouse, and thus rendered delicate and effeminate, but which regains its native firmness and tenacity, when exposed for a season to the winter air."