A GREAT THOUGHT IS A GREAT BOON, FOR WHICH GOD IS TO BE FIRST THANKED,
THEN HE WHO IS THE FIRST TO UTTER IT, AND THEN, IN A LESSER, BUT STILL IN A
CONSIDERABLE DEGREE, THE MAN WHO IS THE FIRST TO QUOTE IT TO Us.-Bovee

NEW YORK

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY

104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY

CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.

All rights reserved.

THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

PREFACE.

We have Dictionaries of WORDS. Why not have a Dictionary of THOUGHTS? Why not a gathering of the condensed and striking thoughts of the world's best thinkers on important and interesting subjects, arranged, as in verbal dictionaries, in alphabetical order of topics, for ready reference and familiar use?

Of the brief and striking sayings of wise and good men, Tillotson says: "They are of great value, like the dust of gold or the sparks of diamonds." And Johnson counts him a benefactor of mankind who condenses the great thoughts and rules of life into short sentences that are easily impressed on the memory and recur promptly to the mind." Such laconic thoughts Swift compares to "burning glasses, as they colect the diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness on the reader's imagination." And of such thoughts it is that Coleridge says: "Let every book-worm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration that does his heart good, hasten to give it " to others.

A collection of such thoughts was begun by the writer, years ago, as a matter of personal interest and for personal use and reference, with no thought of publication. But their number and variety so increased that, as far back as 1852, they were embodied In the WORLD'S LACONICS," a work which, under two different titles, was so favorably received and widely circulated as to suggest the plan of a far larger work, which might be a treasury of the best and most striking thoughts of the world's best authors.

During all these years the plan has been kept in mind, and constant additions have been made from a wide range of personal study and miscellaneous reading, gems of wisdom, and beauty, and common sense, being taken from any and every mine of authorship from which they might be gathered. A broad and rich field for selection has also been found in such valuable collections as "Lacon," "Laconia," "The Laconic Manual" "Burning Words of Brilliant Writers," "Many Thoughts of Many Minds," "Classical and Foreign Quotations," "Great Thoughts from Greek Authors," "Aphorisms of the World's Literature," "Living Thoughts of Living Thinkers," "The Treasury of Thought," "Great Truths by Great Authors," "Thoughts and Apothegms," "Day's Collocon," "Thirty Thousand Thoughts," "Stars from the Poets and Thinkers' Heaven of all Ages," "Wit and Wisdom of Bulwer," "Gems of Thought," "Familiar Quotations," "Life Thoughts," "Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations," "Bits of Burnished Gold," "Beautiful Thoughts," "Seed Grain," German, French, Spanish, and Italian collections, and many other interesting and valuable works, indebtedness to which is freely and gratefully acknowledged.

From these and many other and similar sources the choicest thoughts have been culled, forming a work which, it is hoped, may be of permanent value as in advance of any manual of the kind thus far ever given to the public. No merit is claimed for the gathering except that which belongs to a diligent compiler. The labor of preparing the work has been its own reward. It is hoped that the work itself may be a source of pleasure and profit to others.