Great Throughts Treasury

"All too much of the wage structure has been based on the time workers put in, rather than upon the product put out. The consumer dollar has no interest in how much time it buys - only in the character and quality of the product itself."

"All genuine progress results from finding new facts."

"There are times when minds need to turn to simple things. Perhaps for a few of these nights all of us might do well to leave the briefcases at the office and to read again the pages of the Bible, and to re-read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. We might do well to stay home a few days and walk over the fields, or to stand in the shelter of the barn door and reflect upon the relentless and yet benevolent forces of Mother Nature. The laws of nature are relentless. They can never be disobeyed without exacting a penalty. Yet they are benevolent, for when they are understood and obeyed, nature yields up the abundance that blesses those who understand and obey."

"We are American farmers. We are Americans. We are farmers. Our grand sires freed this virgin continent,plowed it from East to West, and gave it to us.This land is for us and for our children to make richer and more fruitful. We grow foods, fibers - fifteen times as much as we use. We grow men and women -- farmers, Presidents, and Senators, generals of industry,captains of commerce, missionaries, builders. Communists would call us capitalists, because we own land and we own tools. Capitalists might choose to call us laborers,because we work with our hands. Others may call us managers, because we direct men and manage materials. Our children call us "Dad." We are also deacons, stockholders, mechanics, veterinarians, electricians, school board members, Rotarians, voters, scientists,neighbors, men of good will. Our rules are Nature's rules, the laws of God. We command the magic of the seasons and the miracles of science, because we obey Nature's rules. Our raw materials are soil and seed, animals, the atmosphere and the rain, and the mighty sun. We work with brains. We toil with musclesof steel, fed by the fires of lightning and boils from the inner earth. We are partners with the laboratory, with the factory, and with all the people. We provide industry with ever-renewable raw materials from the inexhaustible world of plants. We buy products from the labor of every fellow-citizen.Our efficiencies have raised great cities and happy towns, and have given all the people meat and bread. We believe in work and in honor We believe in freedom. We are grateful for the American freedom that has let us earn so many blessings. We know that liberty is our most precious possession. At the ballot-boxes and on the battlefield we shall defend it. We have proven a new pattern of abundance. We pray that we may also help to make a pattern for peace."

"The most fearful phenomenon of these mid-century years is not the atom bomb; atomic energy does have its constructive possibilities... The most fearful event of these times is the colossal expansion of the government of the United States and the constant increase of executive power within the government."

"All genuine progress results from finding new facts. No law can be passed to make an acre yield three hundred bushels. God has already established the laws. It is four us to discover them, and to learn the facts by which we can obey them."