Great Throughts Treasury

"Things have ends (or scopes) and beginnings. To know what precedes and what follows will assist your comprehension of process."

"'Tis not need we know our every thought or see the work shop where each mask is wrought wherefrom we view the world of box and pit, careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit and serve our jape's turn for a night or two."

"There once was a brainy baboon who always breathed down a bassoon for he said, It appears that in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune."

"This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man."

"There will be a crowd of young women doing homage to my palaver."

"'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!"

"Utter originality is, of course, out of the question"

"Wars are made to make debt."

"We do NOT know the past in chronological sequence. It may be convenient to lay it out anesthetized on the table with dates pasted on here and there, but what we know we know by ripples and spirals eddying out from us and from our own time."

"What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross. What thou lovÂ’st well shall not be reft from thee? What thou lovÂ’st well is thy true heritage."

"When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs I am compelled to conclude that man is the superior animal. When I consider the curious habits of man I confess, my friend, I am puzzled."

"When the head of state of family thinks first of gouging out an income, he must perforce do it through small men; and even if they are clever at their job, if one employ such inferior characters in state and family business the tilled fields will go rack swamp and ruin and edged calamities will mount up to the full.... This is the meaning of: A state does not profit by profits."

"What thou lovest well is thy true heritage. What thou lovest well shall not be reft from thee."

"You let me throw the bricks through the front window. You go in at the back and take the swag."

"Your interest is in the bloody loam but what I'm after is the finished product."

"When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary."

"When words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish."

"When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder."

"Where the dead walked and the living were made of cardboard."

"With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands."

"Why fight for a flag when you can buy one for a nickel"

"You damn sadist! said mr. cummings, you try to make people think."

"You have been second always. Tragical? No. You preferred it to the usual thing: One dull man, dulling and uxorious, one average mind- with one thought less, each year."