Great Throughts Treasury

"Enflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with the high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages."

"Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race, call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace; and glut thy self with what thy womb devours, which is no more than what is false and vain, and merely mortal dross; so little is our loss, so little is thy gain."

"Give me the liberty to know, to think, to believe, and to utter freely, according to conscience, above all other liberties."

"Evil news rides post, while good news bates."

"Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows."

"God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more than the restraint of ten vicious."

"God made thee perfect, not immutable; and good he made thee, but to persevere he left it in thy power, ordained thy will by nature free, not over-rul’d by Fate inextricable, or strict necessity; our voluntarie service he requires, not our necessitated, such with him findes no acceptance, nor can find, for how can hearts, not free, be tri’d whether they serve willing or not, who will but what they must by Destinie, and can no other choose?"

"Many a man lives a burden upon the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life."

"Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve the faith they own; when earnestly they seek such proof, conclude they then begin to fail."

"If the will, which is the law of our nature, were withdrawn from our memory, fancy, understanding, and reason, no other hell could equal, for a spiritual being, what we should then feel from the anarchy of our powers. It would be conscious madness, a horrid thought!"

"Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste."

"Reason is but choosing."

"The childhood shows the man, as the morning shows the day."

"To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education , to teach the people faith, not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimony, justice; not to admire wealth or honor; to hate turbulence and ambition; to place every one his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty and safety."

"The first and wisest of them all profess'd to know this only, that he nothing knew."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven."

"Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures anew."

"There can be no doubt but that everything in the world, by the beauty of its order, and the evidence of a determinate and beneficial purpose which pervades its, testifies that some supreme efficient Power must have pre-existed, by which the whole was ordained for a specific end."

"To the faithful, Death the Gate of Life."

"Where no hope is left, is left no fear."

"Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. "

"He that has light within his own clear breast May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day: But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the mid-day sun; Himself his own dungeon."

"Solitude sometimes is best society."

"Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind."

"Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. Darkness, once gazed upon, can never be lost."

"Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam."

"Luck is the residue of design."

"All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield."

"For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need."