Great Throughts Treasury

"Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn."

"The art of government is the organization of idolatry."

"The churches must learn humility as well as teach it."

"The golden rule is that there are no golden rules."

"The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parents first duty."

"The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man."

"The greatest of evils, and the worst of crimes, is poverty. Our first duty... is not to be poor."

"The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong."

"The right to know is like the right to live. If is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing."

"The seven deadly sins... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can list these seven milestones from Man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are lifted."

"The sound body is a product of the sound mind."

"The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and blood."

"The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation... A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell."

"The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business."

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making your happy."

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."

"There is no divine right of property. Nothing is so completely a man’s own that he may do what he likes with it... Nevertheless, as it is obviously well that each man should labor without fear of being deprived of the use and enjoyment of the product of their labor - as in the nature of things he would not labor at all without some such incentive, it may be said that a man has natural right to own the product of his labor... By this natural right of the individual is still subject to all the limitations imposed by the rights of his fellows."

"When a man wants to murder a tiger, he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him, he calls it ferocity. The distinction between crime and justice is no greater."

"The whole record of civilization is a record of the failure of money as a higher incentive. The enormous majority of men never make any serious effort to get rich. The few who are sordid enough to do so easily become millionaires with a little luck, and astonish the others by the contrast between their riches and their stupidity... The belief in money as an incentive is founded on the observation that people will do for money what they will not do for anything else."

"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it."

"You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."

"Your purpose in life is simply to help on the purpose of the universe."

"Youth is a wonderful thing: what a crime to waste it on children."

"Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing."

"Any religion that is going to unite men… must have room for mystics, prophets, and for priests, and it must be a religion of such a character as will prevent the priests from stoning the prophets."

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

"Alcohol produces artificial happiness, artificial courage, artificial gaiety, artificial self-satisfaction, thus making life bearable for millions who would otherwise be unable to endure their condition. To them alcohol is a blessing. Unfortunately, as it acts by destroying conscience, self-control, and the normal functioning of the body, it produces crime, disease and degradation."

"Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life."

"Every step of progress means a duty repudiated, and a scripture torn up."

"Be good enough to remember that your morals are only your habits; and do not call other people immoral because they have other habits."

"He who does not believe that revelation is continuous does not believe in revelation at all."

"Beauty, purity, respectability, religion, morality, art, patriotism, bravery and the rest… are mere words, useful for duping barbarians into adopting civilization, or the civilized poor into submitting to be robbed and enslaved. This is the family secret of the governing class."

"I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation."

"In Hell there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. Hell, in short, being a place where you have nothing to do but amuse yourself, is the paradise of the worthless."

"I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

"It is far more dangerous to be a saint than to be a conqueror."

"It's all that the young can do for the old, to shock them and keep them up to date."

"It is not enough to know what is good; you must be able to do it."

"Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

"Kings are not born: they are made by universal hallucination."

"Nobody can live in society without conventions. The reason why sensible people are as conventional as they can bear to be is that conventionality saves so much time and thought and trouble and social friction of one sort or another that it leaves them much more leisure for freedom than unconventionality does."

"Man is the only animal which esteems itself rich in proportion to the number and voracity of its parasites."

"No body of men can be induced to do another man’s killing for him unless he can convince them that they may honorably do so. The percentage of blackguards and sadists who enjoy cruelty for its own sake have to pretend that they are patriots and ministers of justice to secure the toleration of their fellow citizens."

"Old men are dangerous; it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world."

"Parentage is a very important profession: but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interests of children."

"The crying need of the nation is not for better morals, cheaper bread, temperance, liberty, culture, redemption of fallen sisters and brothers, nor the grace, love and fellowship of the Trinity, but simply for enough money."

"Patriotism, public opinion, parental duty, discipline, religion, morality, are only fine names for intimidation."

"The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier."

"People never tell you anything until you contact them."