Great Throughts Treasury

"He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce."

"Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art of ending."

"Go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear and with a manly heart."

"How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us some a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away; of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time."

"If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous, and the perpetual exercise of God’s power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be."

"How wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written upon his countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only, as God in “the still, small voice,” and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible, not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal fountain, invisible to man!"

"I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding."

"If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous, and the perpetual existence of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be."

"Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong."

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

"Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait."

"Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal."

"Music is the universal language of mankind - poetry their universal pastime and delight."

"Love gives itself; it is not bought."

"Life is but an empty dream!"

"None but yourself, who are your greatest foe."

"Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart."

"Still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait."

"Submission is the footprint of faith in the pathway to sorrow."

"Not in the clamor of a crowded street nor in the shouts and plaudits of the throng but in ourselves are triumph and defeat."

"The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy."

"Silence is a great peacemaker."

"The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night."

"The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness - the taste and strain from the lees of the vat."

"The mind of the scholar, if you would have it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds. It is better that his armor should be somewhat bruised by rude encounters even, than hang for ever rusting on the wall."

"The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken."

"The laws of nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the laws of man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the laws of nature, were man as unerring in his judgments as nature."

"The soul never grows old."

"The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. If it comes out a thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after."

"The true poet is a friendly man. He takes to his arms even cold and inanimate things, and rejoices in his heart."

"There is no death! What seems so is transition; this life of mortal breath is but a suburb of the life elysian, whose portal we all death."

"To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution."

"To be strong is to be happy!"

"To the poetic mind all things are poetical."

"There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings."

"Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom."

"Three Silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought."

"Thou shalt learn the wisdom early to discern true beauty in utility."

"Thy fate is the common fate of all; into each life some rain must fall."

"Time has laid his hand upon my heart, gently not smiting it, but as a harper lays his open palm upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations."

"To be infatuated with the power of one’s own intellect is an accident which seldom happens but to those who are remarkable for the want of intellectual power. Whenever Nature leaves a hole in a person’s mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit."

"Trouble is the next best thing to enjoyment; there is no fate in the world so horrible as to have no share in either its joys or sorrows."

"To will what God wills is the only science that gives us rest."

"What is time? The shadow on the dial, the striking of the clock, the running of the sand - day and night, summer and winter, months, years, centuries - these are but arbitrary and outward signs, the measure of time, not time itself. Time is the Life of the Soul."

"What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight - the hour of love - the hour of adoration - the hour of rest - when we think of those we love, only to regret that we have not loved them more dearly; when we remember our enemies only to forgive them."

"With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under the ground."

"Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead!"

"What seem to us but dim funereal tapers, may be heaven's distant lamps."

"All are architects of fate, working in these walls of Time; some with massive deed and great, some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is, or low; each thing in its place is best; and what seems idle show strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, time is with materials filled; our todays and yesterdays are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these; leaving no yawning gaps between; think not, because no man sees, such things will remain unseen."

"Where should the scholar live? In solitude, or in society? In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of Nature beat, or in the dark, gray town where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man?"