Great Throughts Treasury

"Tunes and airs have in themselves some affinity with the affections,--as merry tunes, doleful tunes, solemn tunes, tunes inclining men's minds to pity, warlike tunes,--so that it is no marvel if they alter the spirits, considering that tunes have a predisposition to the motion of the spirits."

"Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation."

"Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always best subjects, for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well for churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife."

"Use such as have prevailed before in things you have employed them; for that breeds confidence, and they will strive to maintain their prescription."

"Very few people have a natural feeling for painting, and so, of course, they naturally think that painting is an expression of the artist's mood. But it rarely is. Very often he may be in greatest despair and be painting his happiest paintings."

"Velazquez found the perfect balance between the ideal illustration which he was required to produce, and the overwhelming emotion he aroused in the spectator."

"Usury bringeth the treasure of the realm or state into a few hands: for the usurer being at certainties, and the others at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box."

"Vices of the time; vices of the man."

"Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts."

"Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features; and that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect: neither is it almost seen that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labor to produce excellency; and therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great spirit: and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds not always."

"Virtue is best in a body that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect. The beautiful prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study, for the most part, rather behaviour than virtue."

"We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do . For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil."

"We are wont to call that human reasoning which we apply to Nature the anticipation of Nature (as being rash and premature) and that which is properly deduced from things the interpretation of Nature."

"We cannot too often think, that there is a never sleeping eye that reads the heart, and registers our thoughts."

"We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the continent of nature. And generally let this be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines and veins, than for sections and separations; and that the continuance and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erroneous; while they have not been nourished and maintained from the common fountain. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and rhetoric; whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art. So we may see that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct because it is not repugnant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct. So we see also that the science of medicine, if it be destituted and forsaken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical practice. With this reservation therefore we proceed to Human Philosophy or Humanity, which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate, or distributively; the other congregate, or in society. So as Human Philosophy is either Simple and Particular, or Conjugate and Civil. Humanity Particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that is, of knowledges that respect the Body, and of knowledges that respect the Mind. But before we distribute so far, it is good to constitute. For I do take the consideration in general and at large of Human Nature to be fit to be emancipate and made a knowledge by itself; not so much in regard of those delightful and elegant discourses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries, of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and undivided nature; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which, being mixed, cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either."

"We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake."

"We have also sound houses, where we practice and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies which you have not, of quarter sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise divers trembling and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear to do further the hearing greatly. We have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as if it were tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in tubes and pipes, in strange lines and distances..."

"We ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries of God to our reason; but, on the contrary, to raise and advance our reason to the divine truth. In this part of knowledge, touching divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any deficiency, that I rather note an excess; whereto I have digressed because of the extreme prejudice which both religion and philosophy have received from being commixed together, as that which undoubtedly will make an heretical religion and a fabulous philosophy."

"We must make, therefore, a complete solution and separation of nature, not indeed by fire, but by the mind, which is a kind of divine fire. The first work, therefore, of true induction (as far as regards the discovery of forms) is the rejection or exclusion of the several natures which are not found in some instance where the given nature is present, or are found in some instance where the given nature is absent, or are found to increase in some instance when the given nature decreases, or to decrease when the given nature increases. Then indeed after the rejection and exclusion has been duly made, there will remain at the bottom, all light opinions vanishing into smoke, a form affirmative, solid, and true and well defined. This is quickly said; but the way to come at it is winding and intricate. I will endeavor, however, not to overlook any of the points which may help us toward it."

"We only have our nervous system to paint."

"We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have been decayed and demolished?"

"We take cunning for a sinister, or crooked, wisdom, and certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability…. In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, “The world says,” or “There is a speech abroad.”… It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a man’s own name which he would have another man learn and use, and thereupon take advantage…. It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions; for it makes the other party stick the less…. But these small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite, and it were a good deed to make the best of them; for that nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise."

"We want short, sound, and judicious notes upon Scripture, without running into commonplaces, pursuing controversies, or reducing those notes to artificial method, but leaving them quite loose and native. For, certainly, as those wines which flow from the first treading of the grape are sweeter and better than those forced out by the press, which gives them the roughness of the husk and the stone, so are those doctrines best and sweetest which flow from a gentle crush of the Scriptures, and are not wrung into controversies and commonplaces."

"What a miserable thing it is to be injured by those of whom we cannot complain."

"What is it then to have or have no wife, but single thraldom, or a double strife?"

"What is more kindly than the feeling between host and guest? If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows that he is a citizen of the world and his heart is no island, cut off from other islands, but a continent that joins them."

"What is set down by order and division doth demonstrate that nothing is left out or omitted, but all is there."

"What then remains but that we still should cry not to be born, or, being born, to die?"

"What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth....that doth bring lies in favor but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself."

"When a bee stings, she dies. She cannot sting and live. When men sting, their better selves die. Every sting kills a better instinct. Men must not turn bees and kill themselves in stinging others."

"Whatever is new is unlooked for; and even it mends some, and impairs others: and he that is holpen takes it for a fortune, and he that is hurt for a wrong."

"When a man laughs at his troubles he loses a great many friends. They never forgive the loss of their prerogative."

"When any of the four pillars of government are mainly shaken or weakened--which are religion, justice, counsel and treasure--men need to pray for fair weather."

"When a judge departs from the letter of the law he becomes a lawbreaker."

"When factions are carried too high and too violently, it is a sign of weakness in princes, and much to the prejudice both of their authority and business. The motions of factions under kings ought to be like the motions (as the astronomers speak) of the inferior orbs, which may have their proper motions, but yet still are quietly carried by the higher motion of “primum mobile.”"

"When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labor what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded."

"When children have been exposed, or taken away young, and afterwards have approached to their parentsÂ’ presence, the parents, though they have not known them, have had a secret joy, or other alteration, thereupon."

"When things are come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity."

"When he wrote a letter, he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a by-matter."

"Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb."

"Whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, Philanthropy is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed."

"Who does not want to think is fanatic who can not think is an idiot who does not dare to think is a coward."

"Whereas men have many reasons to persuade, to use them all at once weakeneth them. For it argueth a neediness in every one of the reasons, as if one did not trust to any of them, but fled from one to another."

"Whereas they have sacrificed to themselves, they become sacrificers to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self-wisdom, to have pinioned."

"Who taught the parrot his "Welcome?" Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into a hollow tree where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might come to it? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of air, and to find the way from a flower in a field to her hive? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth in her hill, lest it should take root and grow?"

"Who then to frail mortality shall trust but limns the water, or but writes in dust."

"Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul."

"Whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in communicating and discoursing with another: he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly: he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hourÂ’s discourse than by a dayÂ’s meditation."

"Whoseoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. Certain it is that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment."

"Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much."