Great Throughts Treasury

"Fear when people understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless."

"It too often happens that the religiously disposed are in the same degree intellectually deficient."

"Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning."

"In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing."

"Man, a being embued with reason, cannot on that very account live altogether at random; he is obliged in some sense to live on principle, to live by rule, to profess a view of life, to have an aim, to set up a standard."

"Knowledge is the one thing, virtue another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith."

"Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion."

"No doctrine is defined until it is violated."

"Oh how we hate one another for the love of God."

"Nothing is more difficult than to realize that every man has a distinct soul that every one of all of the millions who live or have lived, is as whole and independent a being in himself, as if there were no one else in the whole world but he."

"Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."

"True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgment; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers."

"We can believe what we choose; we are answerable for what we choose to believe."

"Why should we be willing to go by faith? We do all things in this world by faith in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the word of others. by faith only we know our position in the world, our circumstances, our rights and privileges, our fortunes, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our age, our mortality. Why should Religion be an exception?"

"Virtue is its own reward, and brings with it the truest and highest pleasure; but, if we cultivate it only for pleasure's sake, we are selfish, not religious, and will never gain the pleasure, because we can never have the virtue."

"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. "

"When men understand what each other mean, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless."

"One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers in which idle people indulge themselves."

"Reason is God's gift, but so are the passions. Reason is as guilty as passion. "

"Logic then does not really prove; it enables us to join issue with others; it suggests ideas; it opens views; it maps out for us the lines of thought; it verifies negatively; it determines when differences of opinions are hopeless; and when and how far conclusions are probable; but for genuine proof in concrete matter we require an organon more delicate, versatile, and elastic than verbal argumentation."

"The true and adequate end of intellectual training and of a university is not learning or aquirement, but rather is thought or reason exercised upon knowledge, or what may be called philosophy."

"Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish."

"Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random; we are not here, that we may go to bed at night, and get up in the morning, toil for our bread, eat and drink, laugh and joke, sin when we have a mind, and reform when we are tired of sinning, rear a family and die. God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, . . . for a purpose."

"Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for."

"We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend."