Great Throughts Treasury

"Life is a quarry out of which we are to mold and chisel a complete character."

"Man knows himself only to the extent that he knows the world. Every fresh object, contemplated with deliberation, opens a new faculty within us. Steiner: The truth is exactly the reverse, man knows the world to the extent to which he knows himself."

"Nothing in nature is isolated. Nothing is without reference to something else. Nothing achieves meaning apart from that which neighbors it."

"Nothing is more highly to be prized that the value of each day."

"Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture through the purest tranquility of soul."

"Prayer revives the hope of the heart."

"Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and regression, of evolution and dissolution."

"The best government is that which makes itself superfluous."

"The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith."

"The highest Wisdom would be to grasp that facts are the theory. Don’t look beyond the phenomena, they are the teaching."

"There is nothing more dangerous than ignorance being practiced."

"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it."

"When another is vastly superior to you, there is no remedy but to love him."

"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him."

"If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.""

"A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent."

"All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own."

"Knowing is not enough; We must apply. Willing is not enough; We must do."

"Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action. Now because action is always a decisive factor, something really good can result from an active error, because the effect of all that has been done reaches out into infinity. So although creative action is certainly always best, destroying what has been done is also not without happy consequence."

"Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable."

"Nothing is worth more than this day."

"Only the soul that loves is happy."

"This is the highest wisdom that I own: freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew."

"To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state."

"We see only what we know."

"There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at."

"The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim."

"A man's manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait. "

"A person hears only what they understand. "

"A really great talent finds its happiness in execution. "

"Age merely shows what children we remain. "

"All things are only transitory. "

"Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. "

"Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do. "

"Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes. "

"Doubt grows with knowledge. "

"Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity. "

"Few people have the imagination for reality. "

"First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth."

"Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God. "

"He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines. "

"I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator. "

"In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm... in the real world all rests on perseverance."

"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself."

"It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed."

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean."

"Live dangerously and you live right. "

"Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds."