Great Throughts Treasury

"I have never in my life met a man like him for noble simplicity, and boundless truthfulness. I understood from the way he talked that anyone who chose could deceive him, and that he would forgive anyone afterwards who had deceived him, and that was why I grew to love him."

"Humiliate the reason and distort the soul."

"Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy. It's only that."

"On our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering. "

"They had no temples, but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the whole of the universe; they had no creed, but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature, then there would come for them, for the living and for the dead, a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe. They looked forward to that moment with joy, but without haste, not pining for it, but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts, of which they talked to one another."

"There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?"

"If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others."

"Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself. Watch over your own deceitfulness and look into it every hour, every minute."

"I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness."

"The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man."

"A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself."

" Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself."

"Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain."

"To be in love is not the same as loving. You can be in love with a woman and still hate her."

"It is the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that very well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy."

"The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity."

"What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people."

"Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad. "

"Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship. "

"Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. "

"One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man. "

"Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded."

"The soul is healed by being with children. "

"To love someone means to see him as God intended him. "

"To live without Hope is to Cease to live. "

"The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for."

"A just cause is not ruined by a few mistakes."

"There are... things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

"If there is no immortality, there is no virtue."

"There are three forces, the only three forces capable of conquering and enslaving forever the conscience of these weak rebels in the interests of their own happiness. They are: the miracle, the mystery and authority."

"At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men’s sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love! If you resolve on that once and for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things: there is nothing else like it. "

"Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. "

"Compassion is the chief law of human existence. "

"Everything is in our own hands; only through sheer cowardice will it slip through our fingers. "

"For the secret of man’s being is not only to live… but to live for something definite. Without a firm notion of what he is living for, man will not accept life and will rather destroy himself than remain on earth. "

"Hell is the suffering of being unable to love. "

"If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once. Moreover, there would be nothing immoral then, everything would be permitted. "

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature…. in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?"

"Life is a gift. Life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness. "

"Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all. "

"The death of a child is the greatest reason to doubt the existence of God. "

"A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel."

"A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments."

"A dead man has no age."

"A developed and decent man cannot be vain without a boundless exactingness towards himself and without despising himself at moments to the point of hatred."

"A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, theknowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once."

"A dull animal rage boiled within him."

"A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart."

"A friend of mankind with shaky moral foundation is a cannibal of mankind, to say nothing of his vainglory; insult the vainglory of one of these numberless friends of mankind, and he is ready at once to set fire to the four corners of the world out of petty vengeance."

"A great fire at night always has a thrilling and exhilarating effect. This is what explains the attraction of fireworks. But in that case the artistic regularity with which the fire is presented and the complete lack of danger give an impression of lightness and playfulness like the effect of a glass of Champaign. A real conflagration is a very different matter. Then the horror and a certain sense of personal danger, together with the exhilarating effect at night, produce on the spectator (though of course not in the householder whose goods are being burnt) a certain concussion of the brain and, as it were, a challenge to those destructive instincts which, alas, lie hidden in every heart, even that of the mildest and most domestic little clerk….This sinister sensation is almost always fascinating… of course, the very man who enjoys the spectacle will rush into the fire himself to save a child or an old woman."