Great Throughts Treasury

"The Holy Bible is not only great but high explosive literature. It works in strange ways and no living man can tell or know how that book in its journeyings through the world has started an individual soul 10,000 different places into a new life, a new belief, a new conception and a new faith." - Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

"As regards to its use on the coinage we have actual experience by which to go. In all my life I have never heard any human being speak reverently of this motto on the coins or show any sign of having appealed to any high emotion in him. But I have literally hundreds of times heard it used as an occasion of, and incitement to, the sneering ridicule which it is above all things undesirable that so beautiful and exalted a phrase should excite. For example, throughout the long contest, extending over several decades, on the free [silver] coinage question, the existence of this motto on the coins was a constant source of jest and ridicule; and this was unavoidable. Everyone must remember the innumerable cartoons and articles based on phrases like 'In God we trust for the other eight cents'; 'In God we trust for the short weight'; 'In god we trust for the thirty-seven cents we do not pay'; and so forth and so forth. Surely I am well within bounds when I say that a use of the phrase which invites constant levity of this type is most undesirable." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"The United States does not have a choice as to whether or not is will or will not play a great part in the world. Fate has made that choice for us. The only question is whether we will play the part well or badly." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"A free man, is he, that in those things, which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to." - Thomas Hobbes

"The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes." - Thomas Hobbes

"Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. — We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favor towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves." - Thomas Jefferson

"Two principles, according to the Settembrinian cosmogony, were in perpetual conflict for possession of the world: force and justice, tyranny and freedom, superstition and knowledge; the law of permanence and the law of change, of ceaseless fermentation issuing in progress." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"The supernatural seems irrational, superstitious, archaic and primitive. So far, the natural world has provided explanations for the previously mysterious unknown: social psychology, psychiatry, chemistry, mathematics, biology, medicine, physics, astronomy, geology and history have aided humanity and preserved our mental and physical health and extended our lives. So why do we refer to G-d to as a supernatural being? Where is the evidence that the supernatural exists, or has any bearing on our lives? Does the word "supernatural" even mean anything, other than "I don't understand this (yet)"?" - Tzvi Freeman

"But misery still delights to trace its 'semblance in another's case. No voice divine the storm allay'd, no light propitious shone; when, snatch'd from all effectual aid, we perish'd, each alone: but I beneath a rougher sea, and whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he." - William Cowper

"The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public -- a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization -- which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

"Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a rock." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"Make every speaker as soon as he tells all he knows, sit down. That will shorten our speeches so much you will be out by lunch time." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States; they have not had one since Lincoln." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"The day of the guy working for himself is past. We are living in an age of Mergers. When your business is not doing good you combine with something and sell more stock. The poor little fellow, he can't combine with anything but the Sheriff in case he is going broke, which he generally is. But Big Business merges with another that's not going good and both do nothing together. But it's one of the mental weaknesses of the American people that if two things go together they think it must be great. They don't know how it will be financially, but they know that the stock will go up, and that's all they think about, never mind the dividends." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"Terror is everywhere the beginning of religion." - W. E. H. Lecky, fully William Edward Hartpole Lecky

"I enjoyed the mathematics that I had time to learn. If I ever need or want to learn some more, I shall not be afraid to do so." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"The aim of scientific education, as I see it, is to produce workers in all departments of knowledge in their due proportions; to encourage communication between workers in different fields, and also between them and the general community; to raise the intellectual standards and intellectual interests of the whole country." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"Where there are laws, he who has not broken them need not tremble." - Vittorio Alfieri

"To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong" - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"The fate of a nation has often depended on the good or bad digestion of a prime minister." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"While loving glory so much how can you persist in a plan which will cause you to lose it?" - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"Self-knowledge is everything. If you know what you are all about, you know what life is all about. You are not separate from life; you are life itself." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours — a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God — and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly — not miserably — knowing how to die." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

"To possess money is very well; it may be a most valuable servant; to be possessed by it, is to be possessed by a devil, and one of the meanest and worst kind of devils." - Tryon Edwards

"If one yearns to see the face of the Divine, one must break out of the aquarium, escape the fish farm, to go swim up wild cataracts, dive in deep fjords. One must explore the labyrinth of the reef, the shadows of the lily pads. How limiting, how insulting to think of God as a benevolent warden, an absentee hatchery manager who imprisons us in the 'comfort' of artificial pools, where intermediaries sprinkle our restrictive waters with sanitized flakes of processed nutriment." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat." - William Shakespeare

"They say that God lives very high! But if you look above the pines You cannot see our God. And why? And if you dig down in the mines You never see Him in the gold, Though from Him all that's glory shines. God is so good, He wears a fold Of heaven and earth across His face - Like secrets kept, for love, untold. But still I feel that His embrace Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place: As if my tender brother laid On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, Half waking me at night; and said, Who kissed through the dark, dear guesser?" - Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy... It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer." - Emile Zola

"Angelique, with both hands open, lying limply on her knees, was giving herself. And Felicien remembered the evening on which she had run barefoot through the grass, so adorable that he had pursued her, and whispered in her ear, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you, the eternal cry that had finally emerged from her wide-open heart. I love you... Take me, carry me away, I am yours." - Emile Zola

"But you said so yourself, the poor lass will die of it...Do you really want her to die?" - Emile Zola

"Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion! Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust." - Emile Zola

"It was always the same; other people gave up loving before she did. They got spoilt, or else they went away; in any case, they were partly to blame. Why did it happen so? She herself never changed; when she loved anyone, it was for life. She could not understand desertion; it was something so huge, so monstrous that the notion of it made her little heart break." - Emile Zola

"Nothing is more irritating than to hear honest writers protest about depravity when one is quite certain that they make these noises without knowing what they are protesting about." - Emile Zola

"The fruits of labor must be enjoyed by the working class." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

"An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along; he must offer some little opposition. Even the great Victorian artists were all anti-Victorian, despite the pressures to conform." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"I can never understand how two men can write a book together; to me, that's like three people getting together to have a baby." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money. [Attributed but disavowed by Dirksen]" - Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen

"Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and L£thien" - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien