Great Throughts Treasury

"Let the season of giving be yours and not that of your inheritors."

"Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course."

"March on. Fear not the"

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge."

"Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit."

"Prayer is the song of the heart. It reaches the ear of God even if it is mingled with the cry and the tumult of a thousand men."

"Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

"Remembrance is a form of meeting."

"Not all of us are enabled to see with our inner eyes the great depths of life, and it is cruel to demand that the weak-sighted see the dim and the far."

"Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality."

"Strife in Nature is but disorder longing for order."

"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply."

"The heart's affections are divided like the branches of the cedar tree; if the tree loses one strong branch, it will suffer but it does not die. It will pour all its vitality into the next branch so that it will grow and fill the empty space."

"The soul is an embryo in the body of man, and the day of death is the day of awakening, for it is the great era of labour and the rich hour of creation... Death is an ending to the son of the earth, but to the soul it is the start, the triumph of life... Death removes but the touch, and not the awareness of all good. And he who has lived one spring or more possesses the spiritual life of one who has lived a score of springs."

"There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to Heaven; it makes us feel that bodies are no more than prisons and that this world is only a place of exile."

"We are all seeking the summit of a holy mountain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?"

"Vain are the beliefs and teachings that make man miserable, and false is the good ness that leads him into sorrow and despair, for it is man's purpose to be happy on this earth and lead the way to felicity and preach its gospel wherever he goes. He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life."

"Thoughts have a higher dwelling place than the visible world, and its skies are not clouded by sensuality. Imagination finds a road to the realm of the gods, and there man can glimpse that which is to be after the soul's liberation from the world of substance."

"We are naught but frail atoms in the heavens of the infinite and we cannot but obey and surrender to the will of Providence. If we love, our love is neither from us, nor is it for us. If we rejoice, our joy is not in us, but in Life itself. If we suffer, our pains lies not in our wounds, but in the very heart of Nature."

"Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem."

"When either your joy or your sorrow become great the world becomes small."

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and through they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."

"When you part from your friend, you grieve not; for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding."

"Your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom."

"Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you, or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert."

"Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face."

"In education the life of the mind proceeds gradually from scientific experiments to intellectual theories, to spiritual feeling, and then to God."

"They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty."

"The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master."

"Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

"It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding."

"What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"

"There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward."

"You cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty, unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves."

"Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."

"Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream."

"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."

"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts."

"You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, even in your dreams."

"You pray in your distress and in your need; when that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."

"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity."

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself."

"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge."

"Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth.""

"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution."

"They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price."

"To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do."

"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. "