Great Throughts Treasury

"If you love knowledge, you will be a master of knowledge. What you have come to know, pursue by exercise; what you have not learned, seek to add to your knowledge, for it is as reprehensible to hear a profitable saying and not grasp it as to be offered a good gift by one's friends and not accept it. Believe that many precepts are better than much wealth , for wealth quickly fails us, but precepts abide through all time." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"The only time you have a reputation is when you're not living up to it." - José Iturbi

"Every time you speak, you influence the world. You are either building it up or tearing it down." - Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

"Personal relationships are a major cause of unhappiness... Trying to find successful ways of dealing with people according to their personality traits is futile and time-consuming, and it puts the emphasis on outer characteristics rather than where it belongs, which is on the inner... There is an underlying sameness to us all... Operating from the space-time continuum, it is too easy to see others as different from us, to see boundaries, to be exclusive. Operating from our spiritual center, however, is to see others as part of ourselves, to see no boundaries, to be inclusive." - Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

"Within you is a potential for happiness that does not diminish nor ripen over time." - Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

"No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any." - Thomas Jefferson

"The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them." - Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón

"Committing to a dream is not a one-time occurrence. They must be done daily, hourly, continually. We must choose to commit to our choice, over and over... And the time to commit is now. And now. And now. And now. And now." - John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

"No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility." - Gerald White Johnson

"A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage; people may be amused, band laugh at the time, but they; will be remembered, and brought up against him upon some subsequent occasion." -

"A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain." -

"Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments. Of riches as of everything else, the hope is more than the enjoyment. While we consider them as the means to be used at some future time for the attainment of felicity, ardor after them secures us from weariness of ourselves; but no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life." -

"It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote. In the same manner present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges, and intent upon future advantages. Life, however short, is made shorter by waste of time." -

"It matters not how a man dies but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time." -

"Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, In the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption." -

"Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past." -

"We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because for a time they are not remembered; he may, therefore, justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind." -

"Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue." -

"There is an aliveness in people who are living life and not merely observing or intellectualizing it... During the time of catastrophic change, each individual has the opportunity to feel fully alive and resource-filled-awake far beyond the daily soporific states of consciousness in which most of us reside. Living on an edge heightens the human awareness. It does not dull it." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy

"This spectacle of old age would be unendurable if we did not know that our psyche reaches into a region held captive neither by change in time nor by limitation of place. In that form of being our birth is a death and our death is a birth. The scales of the whole hang balanced." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life." - Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

"The vices operate like age, bring on disease before its time and in the prime of youth, leave the character broken and exhausted." -

"Anything unforgiven is held in the body, the emotions, the mind, and even the soul. Unreleased, it crystallizes, forming obstructions in the very pathways along which energy must flow. Given enough time to harden, it will result in sickness." - Gloria D. Karpinski

"To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth that like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard... Even in time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. If we had no other purpose in life, it would be good enough to simply take care of them and goose them once in a while." - Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

"It’s quite true what philosophy says, that life must be understood backwards. But one then forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forwards. A principle which, the more one thinks it through, precisely leads to the conclusion that life in time can never properly be understood, just because no moment can acquire the complete stillness needed to orient oneself backwards." - Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

"Subjectivity is the truth. By virtue of the relationship subsisting between the eternal truth and the existing individual, the paradox came into being. Let us now go further, let us suppose that the eternal essential truth is itself a paradox. How does the paradox come into being? By putting the eternal essential truth into juxtaposition with existence. Hence when we posit such a conjunction with the truth itself, the truth becomes a paradox. The eternal truth has come into being in time: this is the paradox." - Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

"You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time." -

"Those who have arrived at any very eminent degree of excellence in the practice of an art or profession have commonly been actuated by a species of enthusiasm in their pursuit of it. They have kept one object in view amidst all the vicissitudes of time and fortune." - John Knox

"Where there is love there is no conflict, because love has no image. Love doesn’t build images because love is not touched by thought. Love is not of time." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

"At no time in life is there a lack of opportunity to rebuild and regroup." -

"Truth is like a pearl: he alone possesses it who has plunged into the depths of life and torn his hands on the rocks of Time." -

"The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest, but the most fanatical leaders." -

"He who always seeks more light the more he finds, and finds more the more he seeks, is one of the few happy mortals who take and give in every point of time. The tide and ebb of giving and receiving is the sum of human happiness, which he alone enjoys who always wishes to acquire new knowledge, and always finds it." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"True philosophy is that which makes us to ourselves and to all about us, better; and at the same time, more content, patient, calm, and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm, and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"We might get to know the beauty of the universe in each soul, if we could unfold all that is enfolded in it and that is perceptibly developed only through time. But as each distinct perception of the soul includes an infinite number of confused perceptions, which involve the whole universe, the soul itself knows the things of which it has perception, only in so far as it has distinct and heightened [or unveiled] perceptions of them; and it has perfection in proportion to its distinct perceptions. Each soul knows the infinite, knows all, but confusedly." -

"After the death of a close relative, thoughts of sorrow and pain frequently enter a person’s mind even after the mourning period. When such thoughts arise, one should try to strengthen oneself to accept the Almighty’s judgment. Every time you successfully conquer self-pitying thoughts, you elevate yourself." - Yechezkail Levenstein

"We imagine we are free in our actions, just as in dreaming we deem a place perfectly familiar which we then see doubtless for the first time." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"Our lives are given meaning by our actions - accomplishments made while we are “here” that extend beyond our own time." - Maya Lin

""Know thyself" means: devote time each day to studying yourself... ferreting out your weakness, working at self-improvement, purifying your immortal soul." - Israel Salanter Lipkin

"Be yourself. Cultivate desirable qualities. Be alert. Look for opportunities to express yourself. Be positive. Determine your goal and the route to it. Be systematic. Take one step at a time. Be persistent. Hold to your course. Be a worker. Work your brain more than your body. Be a student. Know your job. Be fair. Treat the other man as you would be treated. Be temperate. Avoid excess in anything. Be confident. Have faith that cannot be weakened." - Frederick Loomis, fully Sir Frederick Oscar Warren Loomis

"One of the most serious thoughts that life provokes is the reflection that we can never tell, at the time, whether a word, a look, a touch, an occurrence of any kind, is trivial or important." - E. V. Lucas, fully Edward Verrall Lucas

"Praise, flattery, exaggerated manners, and fine, high-sounding words were no part of Lakota politeness. Excessive manners were put down as insincere, and the constant talker was considered rude and thoughtless. Conversation was never begun at once, or in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation." - Chief Luther Standing Bear

"You will be able to overcome desires without excessive difficulty when you become aware of their illusory nature. The pleasure of eating, for example, is really of very short duration. You feel the pleasure for only the short amount of time the food is in your mouth. As soon as you have swallowed the food, it is already forgotten... All physical pleasures are similar. Give the matter sufficient thought and you will realize that even the illusory good lasts only a short time. On the other hand, the negative consequences of physical pleasures can be severe and long lasting. A thinking person will definitely not want to place himself in a situation fraught with dangers for momentary pleasures. By habitually thinking about this truth, one will gradually be able to free himself from the prison of foolishly pursuing physical pleasures." - Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

"Stealing time is also robbery." - Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

"Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?" - Alexander Maclaren

"Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances... If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms... Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity." - Albertus Magnus, known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne

"New ideas have a hard time in science. They tend to be suppressed by arrogance - condemnation by acknowledged leaders in the field... Dogmatism restrains, iconoclasm liberates. Vanity, powermongering, avariciousness, pride, dedication, love, industry, sadism and most other attributes of people apply to science and to scientists as well." - Lynn Margulis and Carl Lindegren

"Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken