Great Throughts Treasury

"Of all ennobling sentiments, patriotism may be the most easily manipulated. On the one hand, it gives powerful expression to what is best in a nation’s character: a commitment to principle, a willingness to sacrifice, a devotion to the community by the choice of the individual. But among its toxic fruits are intolerance, belligerence and blind obedience, perhaps because it blooms most luxuriantly during times of war."

"For the truly faithful, no miracle is necessary. For those who doubt, no miracle is sufficient. "

"If you want to humble an empire it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its faith, and when they crumple and burn, it tells us we are not so powerful and we can't be safe. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, planted at the base of Manhattan island with the Statue of Liberty as their sentry, and the Pentagon, a squat, concrete fort on the banks of the Potomac, are the sanctuaries of money and power that our enemies may imagine define us. But that assumes our faith rests on what we can buy and build, and that has never been America's true God."

"In a year when it felt at times as if we had nothing in common anymore, we were united in this hope: that our men and women at arms might soon come safely home, because their job was done. They are the bright, sharp instrument of a blunt policy, and success or failure in a war unlike any in history ultimately rests with them."

"On a normal day, ... we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere."

"Maybe as times get worse we get better. Our pain makes us feel other peoples too; our fear lets us practice valor; we are tense, and tender as well. And among the things we can no longer afford are things we never really wanted anyway."

"Some princes are born in palaces. Some are born in mangers. But a few are born in the imagination, out of scraps of history and hope....Barack Hussein Obama did not win because of the color of his skin. Nor did he win in spite of it. He won because at a very dangerous moment in the life of a still young country, more people than have ever spoken before came together to try to save it. And that was a victory all its own."

"All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together. And so there is now a new revolution under way, one aimed at rolling back the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads. The insurgency goes by many names — slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting — but the message is the same: Less is more; hovering is dangerous; failure is fruitful. You really want your children to succeed? Learn when to leave them alone. When you lighten up, they'll fly higher. We're often the ones who hold them down."

"Child labor has become one of the biggest global concerns for many human rights activists. Approximately 218 million children world- wide are forced into labor. Unfortunately, 126 million of them work in hazardous conditions. Roughly 73 million of child labor populations are less than 10 years old. Most important, one of the most astonishing facts about child labor is that every year 22,000 children die in accidents that are work- related (FreetheChildren.com). The majority of the children subjected to child labor come from poorer countries of the world. As a result of increased poverty in these parts of the world, children are kept out of school and forced to work. Organizations that have been developed to fight child labor believe that by increasing education access and helping to end poverty are crucial in the fight to end senseless child labor."

"Through play children explore, develop and represent learning experiences, which help them to make sense of the world. They practise and build up ideas, concepts and skills. They learn how to control themselves and understand the need for rules. They have opportunities to think creatively and imaginatively, take risks and make mistakes. They can work alone, alongside other children, or cooperate, communicating with them as they rehearse their feelings, investigate and solve problems. They can express fears or re-live anxious experiences in controlled and safe situations."

"Daily routine is a strategy which most settings have in use to empower children. The daily routine “provides a consistent, predictable sequence of events that gives children a sense of control over what happens in their day” . Different settings develop different routine depend how long children stay in the premises and their age, but most of the daily routine contain basic components such as: outside routine, large group time, small group time, register time, art/craft time, tidy up time and snack/meal time. During the daily routine the child learns to make choices and discovers their consequences. This creates sort of secure environment, because children know what to expect and this allows them to be more involve in the tasks and more co-operative with the practitioner. The second strategy is planning and providing different activities and experiences for children. This strategy is suggested by the EYFS because allows for adventure, exploration and gaining new experiences. Different activities, which the setting provide develop range of skills and abilities. Taking part in activities, free-flow or structured, allows children learn social interactions and behaviours such as sharing equipment, taking turns. Providing activities allows children to use their language to communicate wiliness to participation in it, raising their confidence to communicate and self reliance to complete it. Providing different activities stimulate children`s imagination, cognitive, language, personal, social and emotional as well as physical development and allow to fulfil children`s potential. "

"As a final indignity for the defeated warrior, Vice President Nixon had to preside over the roll call of the Electoral College. This is the first time in 100 years that a candidate for the presidency announced the result of an election in which he was defeated, he told the assembled members of Congress. I do not think we could have a more striking and eloquent example of the stability of our constitutional system. He got a standing ovation."

"Bill Clinton was lucky in many ways; but when it came to former presidents, he won the lottery. When he was elected president, he had five former commanders in chief at his disposal: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, the most of any president in the twentieth century. Not all of them had been helpful to one another, in or out of office. But some combination of his charm, their needs, and the new global challenges of the post?Cold War age allowed Clinton to deploy nearly all to his advantage?especially, as it turned out, the Republicans."

"Death will never be pretty - its sights and smells too close and crude. And it will never come under our control: it gallops where we tiptoe, rips up our routines, burns our very breath with its heat and sting."

"Eisenhower had run the Army; he knew all the ways decision making can go off the rails, and insisted on collective debate precisely to prevent senior officials from freelancing, or putting their departmental interests first. For all the formal machinery, Eisenhower was very literally the commander in chief, making the key decisions himself and monitoring closely how they were carried out. Even years after D-Day, when critics needled him for not being on the front lines with the invading forces, he retorted, I planned it and took responsibility for it. Did you want me to unload a truck?"

"His manner somehow friendly and courtly at the same time."

"As I hung up and walked slowly back to our table, Nixon recalled, it dawned on me that I had just participated in a probably unprecedented series of conversations. In the space of less than ten minutes, I had talked to a former President of the United States, the present president and the President-elect! And they, in turn, had all talked not just to the current vice president, but a future president."

"I would like to see every newspaper and every magazine have a network of bureaus all over the world, gathering news."

"I?m sure there?s anxiety about the spinoff [Time Magazine], because no one likes any kind of uncertainty. But there is also a very strong case to make that this is exactly what we need in order to be even stronger."

"If compassion and mercy are not compatible with politics, Ford said, then something is the matter with politics."

"If the Presidents Club had a seal, around the ring would be three words: cooperation, competition, and consolation. On the one hand, the presidents have powerful motives?personal and patriotic?to help one another succeed and comfort one another when they fail. But at the same time they all compete for history?s blessing."

"In his final remarks to the White House staff, on the day he resigned his office, Nixon applied a version of the lesson to himself. Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don?t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."

"Kennedy may not have cared what Ike had to say. But he knew he at least had to appear to. If nothing else, the image of the two of them consulting would go a long way to reassuring people that the young president was getting the advice he needed."

"Lyndon Johnson realized he really was President, that his identity had changed by President Kennedy's shocking death, when aides who had been like family to him minutes before, stood in his presence on Air Force One."

"Nixon urged Clinton to maintain his relationship with Yeltsin but make contact with other democrats in Russia. He warned Clinton away from some ultranationalists and toward those interested in liberty and reform. He pressed Clinton to replace his ambassador in Kiev and concentrate future U.S. economic aid on Ukraine, where it would matter most."

"The modern Presidents Club was founded by two men who by all rights should have loathed each other. There was Harry Truman, the humble haberdasher from Missouri, hurled into office in the spring of 1945, summoning to the White House Herbert Hoover, a failed Republican president who had left town thirteen years earlier as the most hated man in America, his motorcades pelted with rotten fruit. They were political enemies and temperamental opposites. Where Truman was authentic, amiable, if prone to eruptions of temper, Hoover could be cold, humorless, incapable of small talk but ferociously sure of the rightness of his cause."

"The one problem with the Internet for journalists who like doing long form is that any story that's going to involve 16 screens on the web page... that's asking a lot of people."

"The only way to guarantee smart decisions, Ike believed, was to bring all the responsible parties together and have them fight it out. I do not believe in bringing them in one at a time and therefore being more impressed by the most recent one you hear, he said later. You must get courageous men, men of strong views and let them debate and argue with each other."

"The wand is mightier than the sword."

"This is an occasion when I should like to add something more, because yours has been a friendship which has reached deeper into my life than you know. I gave up a successful profession in 1914 to enter public service. I served through the First World War and after for a total of about 18 years. When the attack on Pearl Harbor came, I at once supported the President and offered to serve in any useful capacity. Because of my varied experiences during the First World War, I thought my services might again be useful, however there was no response. My activities in the Second World War were limited to frequent requests from Congressional committees. When you came to the White House within a month you opened the door to me to the only profession I knew, public service, and you undid some disgraceful action that had been taken in the prior years. For all of this and your friendship, I am deeply grateful. If Hoover and Truman could forge such a bond, there was no telling what two presidents who actually had something in"

"To one degree or another every president is haunted by those who went before, but few so literally as Johnson. No president had ever witnessed the slaying of his predecessor or endured such a brutal transfer of power."