Great Throughts Treasury

"No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy."

"Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. I can work out a good character much faster than anyone can lie me out of it."

"Ardent spirits employed to invigorate the intellect, or restore exhausted nature under severe study, is often a fatal experiment. Mighty men have been cast down in this manner never to rise."

"But of all the ways to hell, which the feet of deluded mortals tread, that of the intemperate is the most dreary and terrific. The demand for artificial stimulus to supply the deficiencies of healthful aliment, is like the rage of thirst, and the ravenous demand of famine. It is famine: for the artificial excitement has become as essential now to strength and cheerfulness, as simple nutrition once was. But nature, taught by habit to require what once she did not need, demands gratification now with a decision inexorable as death, and to most men as irresistible."

"God has made the human body to be sustained by food and sleep, and the mind to be invigorated by effort and the regular healthfulness of the moral system, and the cheering influence of his moral government. And whoever, to sustain the body, or invigorate the mind, or cheer the heart, applies habitually the stimulus of ardent spirits, does violence to the laws of his nature, puts the whole system into disorder, and is intemperate long before the intellect falters, or a muscle is unstrung."

"Great moral events can never be accomplished by single causes, and God has never set his seal to all parts of any complex human plan."

"Happy the man, who so avoids the appearance of evil, as not to shorten his days by what he may call the prudent use of ardent spirits."

"In our own country, it is manifest that slavery must terminate quickly; and we trust that before the close of the present century, the reproach will be wiped away."

"Intemperance is the sin of our land, and, with our boundless prosperity, is coming in upon us like a flood; and if anything shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hang upon our experiment of civil liberty, it is that river of fire, which is rolling through the land, destroying the vital air, and extending around an atmosphere of death."

"That the slave trade must cease is certain. Feeble as the moral sense of nations is; and slow as is their movement in a work of justice end mercy, the conscience of nations is beginning to act, and the arm of power to be extended, in earnest, to blot out this long standing shame on humanity."

"That the slave trade must cease soon, is manifest from the movements of Providence.--The power of steam is opening a highway to the heart and the extremities of Africa and commerce, the pioneer of Christianity, has commenced her march, and the angel has lifted the wing for flight, to preach, trumpet-tongued, the everlasting gospel."

"The imported discovery, that human nature is too good to be made better by discipline, that children are enticed from the right way by religious instruction, and driven from it by the rod, and kept in thraldom by the conspiracy of priests and legislators, has united not a few in the noble experiment of emancipating the world by the help of an irreligious, ungoverned progeny. The indolent have rejoiced in the discovery that our fathers were fools and bigots, and have cheerfully let loose their children to help on the glorious work; while thousands of families, having heard from their teachers, or believing, in spite of them, that morality will suffice both for earth and heaven, and not doubting that morality will flourish without religion, have either not reared the family altar, or have put out the sacred fire, and laid aside together the rod and the Bible, as superfluous auxiliaries in the education of children. From the school, too, with pious regard for its sacred honors, the Bible, by some, has been withdrawn, lest, by a too familiar knowledge of its contents, children should learn to despise it; as if ignorance were the mother of devotion, and the efficacy of laws depended upon their not being understood."

"There can be no doubt that slavery, through the world, is destined to cease."

"What men meant for evil, God meant for good; and the accomplishment of his comprehensive plan will at last cause the wrath of man to praise him in the civilization and Christianization of Africa."

"Man was to be governed by reason, conscience, and the laws of heaven; and the signs of the times announce, that the day hastens, when every yoke shall be broken, and the oppressed go free."

"That slavery is wrong, and a great national sin and national calamity, and that as soon as possible it is to be brought to an end, not however, by force, nor by national legislation, nor by fomenting insurrection, nor by the violation of the constitution and the dissolution of the union, but by information, and argument, and moral suasion--and by the spontaneous action of the slave-holding states."

"No sin has fewer apologies than intemperance."