Great Throughts Treasury

"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."

"Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love."

"Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it. "

"Action expresses priorities. "

"A true soldier does not argue as he marches, how success is going to be ultimately achieved. But he is confident that if he only plays his humble part well, somehow or other the battle will be won. In is that spirit that every one of us should act. It is not given to us to know the future. But it is given to everyone of us to know how to do our own part well. "

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth. "

"In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place. "

"The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one’s opponent. "

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning. "

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. The more helpless the creature, the more that it is entitled to protection by man from the cruelty of man. "

"There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e. the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state, to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being. "

"Hatred ever kills, Love never dies, such is the vast difference between the two. What is ordained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality, for it increases hatred. "

"My work will be finished if I succeed in carrying conviction to the human family that every man or woman, however weak in body, is the guardian of his or her self-respect and liberty, and that this defence prevails though the world be against the individual resister. "

"The test of friendship is assistance in adversity, and that too, unconditional assistance, Co-operation which needs consideration is as a commercial contract and not friendship. Conditional co-operation is like adulterated cement which does not bind. "

"It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. "

"Friendship that insists on agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be. "

"It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh. "

"What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea. "

"You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. "

"If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause. "

"Literary education is of no value, if it is not able to build up a sound character. "

"Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy. "

"In nature there is a fundamental unity running through all the diversity we see about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity. "

"Infinite striving to be the best is man’s duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God’s hands. "

"When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator. "

"If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. "

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. "

"My trust is solely in God. And I trust men only because I trust God. If I had no God to rely upon, I should be like Timon, a hater of my species. "

"Mankind is notoriously too dense to read the signs that God sends from time to time. We require drums to be beaten into our ears, before we should wake from our trance and hear the warning and see that to lose oneself in all, is the only way to find oneself. "

"Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position. "

"I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart?s affections and the truth of Imagination ? What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth ? whether it existed before or not ? for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty."

"Notwithstanding your Happiness and your recommendation I hope I shall never marry. Though the most beautiful Creature were waiting for me at the end of a Journey or a Walk; though the carpet were of Silk, the Curtains of the morning Clouds; the chairs and Sofa stuffed with Cygnet?s down; the food Manna, the Wine beyond Claret, the Window opening on Winander mere, I should not feel ? or rather my Happiness would not be so fine, as my Solitude is sublime. Then instead of what I have described, there is a Sublimity to welcome me home ? The roaring of the wind is my wife and the Stars through the window pane are my Children. The mighty abstract Idea I have of Beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness ? an amiable wife and sweet Children I contemplate as a part of that Beauty. But I must have a thousand of those beautiful particles to fill up my heart. I feel more and more every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds ? No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King?s body guard? I melt into the air with a voluptuousness so delicate that I am content to be alone? I have written this that you might see I have my share of the highest pleasures and that though I may choose to pass my days alone I shall be no Solitary? I am as happy as a Man can be? with the yearning Passion I have for the beautiful, connected and made one with the ambition of my intellect."

"Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world ? there I am a child ? there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance ? I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child ? Some think me middling, others silly, others foolish ? everyone thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in truth it is with my will ? I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so great a resource."