Great Throughts Treasury

"He who is lord of himself, and exists upon his own resources, is a noble but a rare being." - Samuel Egerton Brydges

"There is no peace except where I am, saith the Lord... As space spreads everywhere, and all things move and change within it, but it moves not nor changes, so I am the space within the soul, of which the space without is but the similitude and mental image; cometh thou to inhabit me, thou hast the entrance to all life - death shall no longer divide thee from whom thou lovest. I am the sun that shines upon all creatures from within - gazest thou upon me thou shalt be filled with joy eternal. Be not deceived. Soon this outer world shall drop off - thou shalt slough it away as a man sloughs his mortal body. Learn even now to spread thy wings in that other world - the world of equality - to swim in the ocean, my child, of me and my love. (Ah! have I not taught thee by the semblance of this outer world, but its alienations and deaths and mortal sufferings - all for this? For joy, ah! joy unutterable!)" -

"It is useless to gather virtues without humility, for the spirit of the Lord delighteth to dwell in the hearts of the humble." -

"The soiled mirror never reflects the rays of the sun; so the impure and the unclean in heart that are subject to Maya (illusion) never perceive the glory of Bhagavan, the holy One. But the pure in heart see the Lord as the clear mirror reflects the sun. So be holy." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"The tongue of a man is the rudder of a ship, but the Universal Lord is its pilot." - Amen-em-apt NULL

"Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy." -

"Thou hast made us of Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless 'til they repose in Thee." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Six hundred and thirteen commandments were given to Moses. King David came and reduced them to eleven (Psalms XV). The prophet Isaiah further reduced them to six (Isaiah XXXIII) Micah (VI, 8) reduced them to three: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." - Babylonian Talmud

"Lord, grant me that I may always desire more than I can accomplish." -

"The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is." - Samuel Butler

"As we look up into these glorious culminations, how grand life becomes! To be forever with the Lord, and forever changing into His likeness, and, still more, forever depending in the companionship of His thought and bliss, “from glory to glory” - could we desire more?" - Randolph S. Foster, fully Randolph Sinks Foster

"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."" - Benjamin Franklin

"All men who would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Love is represented as the fulfilling of the law, a creature’s perfection. All other graces, all divine dispensations contribute to this, and are lost in it as in a heaven. It expels the dross of our nature; it overcomes sorrow; it is the full joy of our Lord." - Richard Hooker

"Dark as my path may seem to others, I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way. Although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid toward the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where life and death are one in the presence of the Lord." -

"You may break a mosque, you may break a temple, you may break any holy place, but you must not break the human heart, because there the Lord Himself dwells." - Saint Mansur Mastana, born Bayazid Al Bastami, aka Tayfur Abu Yazid Bistami or Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami

"The Lord’s Prayer, for a succession of solemn thoughts, for fixing the attention upon a few great points, for suitableness to every condition, for sufficiency, for conciseness without obscurity, for the weight and real importance of its petition, is without an equal or a rival." - William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa

"And yet we are very apt to be full of ourselves, instead of Him that made what we so much value, and but for whom we can have no reason to value ourselves. For we have nothing that we can call our own, no, not ourselves; for we are all but tenants, and at will too, of the great Lord of ourselves, and the rest of this great farm, the world that we live upon." - William Penn

"The soul is imprisoned in the body, and the Lord... built two windows in the wall of the prison... Unfortunately, the windows have curtains - eyelids; and a man whose soul is impure, feeling himself scrutinized, lets down the curtains and conceals the soul." -

"I wonder many times that ever a child of God should have a sad heart, considering what the Lord is preparing for him." - Samuel Rutherford

"A good mind is a lord of a kingdom." -

"You must make your choice whether to hold on to some thing which cannot save you, or let go, and fall into the hands of the Lord." - Ichabod Smith Spencer

"The Lord's Prayer is short and mysterious, and, like the treasures of the Spirit, full of wisdom and latent senses: it is not improper to draw forth those excellencies which are intended and signified by every petition, that by so excellent an authority we may know what is lawful to beg of God." - Jeremy Taylor

"The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals." - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, sometimes called "The Iron Duke"

"You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her." - Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

"The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity and that's just not fair." - Konrad Adenauer, fully Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer

"Never do I argue with a; man with a desire to hear him say what is wrong, or to expose him and win a victory over him… Whenever I face an opponent in debate I silently pray, “O Lord, Help him so that truth may flow from his heart and on his tongue, and so that if truth is on my side, he may follow me; and if it be on his side, I may follow him.”" - Al-Shafi’I, fully Abū ʿAbdullāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shafiʿī NULL

"Essence beyond essence, Nature increate, Framer of the world, I set thee, Lord, before my face. I lift up my soul to thee, I worship thee on my knees, and humble myself under thy mighty hand." -

"The more we can squeeze out of nature by invention and discoveries and improved organization of labour, the more uncertain our existence seems to be. It's not we who lord it over things, it seems, but thinks which lord it over us." -

"Show love to all creatures, and thou wilt be happy; for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for he is all in all." - Tulsidas NULL

"No one can arrive at knowledge of the Lord without knowing his own soul, his own mind, and body; for what wisdom can he possess who does not know himself?" -

"We have become so preoccupied with power and control over nature that we have lost an important dimension of our being, the disposition of thankfulness, of commemoration, of perceiving and enjoying something for its own sake. Instead of viewing these immediate objects of our environment in terms of their own being, we have come to regard them solely in terms of what they are for us. And to such an exploitative mentality, nature’s own voice becomes mute. Approached as material merely, to be worked up and pressed into the service of a self-styled lord of creation, she contains no revelation and no blessing." - J. Glenn Gray

"As different streams have different sources and with wanderings crooked or straight, all reach the sea, so Lord, the different paths which men take, guided by their different tendencies, lead to Thee." - Hindu Prayer NULL

"As different streams have different sources and with wanderings crooked or straight, all reach the sea, so Lord, the different paths which men take, guided by their different tendencies, all lead to Thee." -

"It has always been a two-way road. It is a Double Search. God is forever seeking us from the Love that comes down from Above. And man is forever striving for eternal reality and the Beauty of the Lord, our God." -

"I believe in immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings. I believe that the state we enter after death is wrought of our own motives, thoughts, and deeds... I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one in the Presence of the Lord." - Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

"Be the chief but never the lord." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"Built me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and when he is afraid... whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee... whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men." - Douglas MacArthur

"Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms, thou mayest always stand fast in the Lord within thee, to that degree as if thy soul had already entered the always present now of eternity." - Saint Albertus Magnus, aka "Doctor Universalis", Albert the Great, Albertus Magnus and Albert of Cologne, "the teacher of everything there is to know"

"Learn to know thyself. Who knows himself, know his Lord." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

"As the lotus lives in water detached, as the duck floats without drenching, so does one cross the ocean of life. If one’s mind is attuned to the word, one lives with detachment, enshrines the Lord in his mind, and sees the unperceivable and unfathomable." - Guru Nanak

"What is fullness of joy but peace? Joy is tumultuous only when it is not full; but peace is the privilege of those who are “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”" -

"Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that point of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God’s Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart, because there we stand before the face of the Lord, all-seeing, within us." - Henri Nouwen, fully Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen

"Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is grater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment." - Haile Selassie

"No one has the right to despise the rich until, like Our Lord, he has proven himself free from the passion to possess… and then he will not wish to despise any one." - Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

"Self-discipline never means giving up anything - for giving up is a loss. Our Lord did not ask us to give up the things of earth, but to exchange them for better things." - Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

"In the heart of all things, of whatever there is in the universe, dwells the Lord. He alone is the reality." - Isavasya Upanishad

"The goal of all religions is the same, but the language of the teachers differs. The goal is to kill the false “I” so that the real “I,” the Lord, will reign." - Vivekananda, fully Sri or Swami Vivekananda, born Narendra Nath Datta NULL

"Compassion is the only one of the human emotions the Lord permitted Himself and it has carried the divine flavor ever since." - Dagobert Runes, fully Dabovert David Runes

"We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance. With more means at its disposal, more knowledge, more techniques than ever, it turns out that the world today goes the same way as the worst of worlds that have been; it simply drifts." - José Ortega y Gasset