Great Throughts Treasury

"It is the Way of Heaven to take from those who have too much, and give to those who have too little. By the way of man is not so. He takes away from those who have too little, to add to his own superabundance." -

"The tree that needs two arms to span its girth began from the tiniest shoot. Yon tower, nine storeys high, rose from a little mound of earth. A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step." -

"Trust him little who praises all; him less who censures all; and him least who is indifferent to all." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"A little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all." -

"When pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all." -

"True opinions can prevail only if the facts to which they refer are known; if they are not known, false ideas are just as effective as true ones, if not a little more effective." - Walter Lippmann

"One realizes the full importance of time only when there is little of it left. Every man's greatest capital asset is his unexpired years of productive life." - Paul W Litchfield, fully Paul Weeks Litchfield

"General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room." - John Locke

"The great art of learning is to understand but little at a time." - John Locke

"How little nature demands. Running water and bread are enough for mankind." - Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus NULL

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied... but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

"Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

"He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child." -

"Benefits should be granted little by little, so that they may be better enjoyed." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"Justice is blind not deaf - Justice listens too much and looks too little." - Steele Mackaye, fully James Morrison Steele Mackaye

"As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most pat in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard." - Alexander Maclaren

"To name an object is to deprive a poem of three-fourths of its pleasure, which consists in a little-by-littler guessing game; the ideal is to suggest." - Stephane Mallarme, born Étienne Mallarmé

"Leave a little to nature: she understands her business better than we do." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"What we commonly call friendships are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse between our souls." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Life is aimless: a little love, a little hate, and then - good day! Life is short: a little hope; a little dreaming, and then - goodnight!" - Leon Montenaeken, fully Louis Moreau Constant Corneille van Montenaeken

"Those who have but little business to attend to, are great talkers. The less men think, the more they talk." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

"Even good opinions are worth very little unless we hold them in a broad, intelligent, and spacious way." - John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley

"I believe the recipe for happiness to be just enough money to pay the monthly bills you acquire, a little surplus to give you confidence, a little too much work each day, enthusiasm for your work, a substantial share of good health, a couple of real friends, and a wife and children to share life's beauty with you." - John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley

"When a pump is frequently used, the water pours out at the first stroke, because it is high; but, if the pump has not been used for a long time, the water gets low, and when you want it you must pump a long while; and the water comes only after great efforts. It is so with prayer. If we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray, and desire and words are always ready; but, if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the well gets low." - Felix Neff

"I can endure a melancholy man, but not a melancholy child; the former, in whatever slough he may sink, can raise his eyes either to the kingdom of reason or of hope; but the little child is entirely absorbed and weighed down by one black poison-drop of the present." - Caroline Norton

"This is Daddy's little secret for today: Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows." - Robert Oppenheimer, fully Julius Robert Oppenheimer

"Nature I believe in. True art aims to represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as they appear. My heroes and heroines I want not extreme types, all good or all bad; but human, mortal—partly good, partly bad. Realism I need. Pure mental abstractions have no significance for me. " - Ouida, pseudonym of Maria Louise Ramé, preferred to be called Marie Louise de la Ramée NULL

"A world of little cares is continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows nothing of, to open the first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponable wants; and a day, even a few hours, in such a condition is often the crisis of a life of ruin." - Thomas Paine

"To be a good child he needs but little man in him; to be a good man he needs much of the child in him." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

"One cannot have faith without optimism. Faith and hope are inseparable. Depression is a great obstacle in the spiritual life and we must strive to conquer it... Cheerfulness is one of the essential spiritual qualities we must guard ourselves against dejection, self-denunciation, or even feeling a little down-hearted... Dejection invariably distorts our vision - it magnifies our troubles." - Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL

"He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care." - William Penn

"The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answers." - William Penn

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drink largely sobers us again." - Alexander Pope

"To tell the truth, however, family and poverty have done more to support me than I have to support them. They have compelled me to make exertions that I hardly thought myself capable of; and often when on the eve of despairing, they have forced me, like a coward in a corner, to fight like a hero, not for myself, but for my wife and little ones." - Philip Bennett Power

"Every physician knows, though metaphysicians know little about it, that the laws which govern the animal machine are as certain and invariable as those which guide the planetary system, and are as little within the control of the human being who is subject to them." - J (ohn) B (oynton) Priestley, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) English Theologian, Philosopher or J (ohn) B (oynton) Priestly

"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed." - Michael Pritchard

"Think nothing too little seek for the cross in the daily incidents of life, look for the cross in everything. Nothing is too little which relates to man's salvation, nor is there anything too little in which either to please God or to serve Satan." - Nathan Marsh Pusey

"The way to subject all things to thyself is to subject thyself to reason; thou shalt govern many, if reason govern thee. Wouldst thou be crowned the monarch of a little world? command thyself." - Francis Quarles

"An acknowledged love sanctifies every little freedom; and little freedoms beget great ones." - Samuel Richardson

"Women in love pardon great indiscretions more easily than little infidelities." -

"Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too little in their eyes." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"They must know but little of mankind who imagine that, having once been seduced by luxury, they can ever renounce it." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation." -

"In true friendship, the meaning of life gets enfleshed... The meaning of life breaks in upon us with insistence, making us realize that we can never really be separated from someone we love so long as we carry with us always, as if in a little sack, the other person’s heart... Faith and hope lead to the... most thrilling virtue: unconditional love. It encourages us to risk it all with our whole hears open." - Barry Sanders

"If your life is not one-pointed, you cannot feel happy, fearless and powerful. You will always feel a little insecure, a little weak, a little distracted." - Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar

"Whatever of goodness emanates from the soul, gathers its soft halo in the eyes; an if the heart be a lurking-place of crime, the eyes are sure to betray the secret. A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent, a kind eye makes contradiction assent, an enraged eye makes beauty a deformity; so you see, forsooth, the little organ plays no inconsiderable, if not a dominant, part." - Frederic Saunders

"Do not envy the violet the dew-drop or glitter of a sunbeam; do not envy the bee the plant from which he draws some sweets. Do not envy man the little goods he possesses; for the earth is for him the plant from which he obtains some sweets, and his mind is the dew-drop which the world colors for an instant." - Leopold Schefer

"[The earth] is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe that you can block it out with your thumb, and you realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you - all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love." - Russell Schweikart, fully Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart aka Schweikart

"Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery." - Albert Schweitzer