Great Throughts Treasury

"The only thing that could spoil a day was people.... People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"When you have a child, the world has a hostage." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"You had to have these peasant leaders quickly in this sort of war and a real peasant leader might be a little too much like Pablo. You couldn't wait for the real Peasant Leader to arrive and he might have too many peasant characteristics when he did. So you had to manifacture one. At that, from what he had seen of Campesino, with his black beard, his thick negroid lips, and his feverish, staring eyes, he thought he might give almost as much trouble as a real peasant leader. The last time he had seen him he seemed to have gotten to believe his own publicity and think he was a peasant." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"You know what makes a good loser? Practice." - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"All the indications are that the present structure of large-scale industrial enterprise, in spite of heavy taxation and an endless proliferation of legislation, is not conducive to the public welfare." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"An expansion of man's ability to bring forth secondary products is useless unless preceded by an expansion of his ability to win primary products from the earth; for man is not a producer but only a converter, and for every job of conversion he needs primary products." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"But while all fanaticism shows intellectual weakness, a fanaticism about the means to be employed for reaching quite uncertain objectives is sheer feeble mindedness." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"One of the most fateful errors of our age is the belief that the problem of production has been solved. The illusionÂ…is mainly due to our inability to recognize that the modern industrial system, with all its intellectual sophistication, consumes the very basis on which it has been erected. To use the language of the economist, it lives on irreplaceable capital which it cheerfully treats as income." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, monotonous, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of "bread and circuses" can compensate for the damage done – these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence – because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The bigger the country, the greater is the need for internal "structure" and for a decentralized approach to development. If this need is neglected, there is no hope for the poor." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The exclusion of wisdom from economics, science and technology was something which we could perhaps get away with for a little while, as long as we were relatively unsuccessful; but now that we have become very successful, the problem of spiritual and moral truth moves into the central position." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"TheÂ… crisis of which I have spoken will not go away if we simply carry on as before. It will become worse and end in disaster, until or unless we develop a new life-style which is compatible with the real needs of human nature, with the health of living nature around us, and with the resource endowment of the world." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"To mention these things, no doubt, means laying oneself open to the charge of being against science, technology, and progress. Let me therefore, in conclusion, add a few words about future scientific research. Man cannot live without science and technology any more than he can live against nature." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"Knowing that his audiences are capable of forming bad impressions of him, the individual may come to feel ashamed of a well-intentioned honest act merely because the context of its performance provides false impressions that are bad. Feeling this unwarranted shame, he may feel that his feelings can be seen; feeling that he is thus seen, he may feel that his appearance confirms these false conclusions concerning him. He may then add to the precariousness of his position by engaging in just those defensive maneuvers that he would employ were he really guilty. In this way it is possible for all of us to become fleetingly for ourselves the worst person we can imagine that others might imagine us to be." - Erving Goffman

"The self... is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented." - Erving Goffman

"In this communication I wish first to show in the simplest case of the hydrogen atom (nonrelativistic and undistorted) that the usual rates for quantization can be replaced by another requirement, in which mention of ‘whole numbersÂ’ no longer occurs. Instead the integers occur in the same natural way as the integers specifying the number of nodes in a vibrating string. The new conception can be generalized, and I believe it touches the deepest meaning of the quantum rules." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

"The present is the only thing with no end." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

"This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance." - Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

"It is not your role to make others happy, it is your role to keep yourself in balance. When you pay attention to how you feel and practice self-empowering thoughts that align with who you really are, you will offer an example of thriving that will be of tremendous value to those who have the benefit of observing you." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"No sickness would exist on this planet it your contrast hadn't carved out wellness...that you're NOT allowing." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"The only way that you can ever know if something is of value to you is by the way it feels as you are receiving it." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"Those old habits don't have to be erased, they just become replaced by a new habit that is more in vibrational harmony with who you are and what you want." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"You cannot receive vibrationally something that you are not a vibrational match to. And so, bless those who are finding abundance. And in your blessing of them and their abundance, you will become abundant too." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"So we must try to distinguish between two questions that are often confused in this discussion. Is the existence of God a truth demonstrable by natural reason, so that it is knowable and known with certitude? Without a doubt the answer to this first question is “yes.” The second question is whether everyone can consider his natural reason infallible in its effort to demonstrate rationally the existence of God? The merciless criticism of the proofs of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Descartes, Malebranche and many others are timely reminders of the need for modesty. Are we keener philosophers than they? That is the whole question. Modesty is not skepticism. So we should not be afraid to let our mind pursue the proof of GodÂ’s existence until we reach the greatest possible certitude, but we should keep intact our faith in the word that reveals this truth to the most simple folk as well as to the most learned. Here it is well to meditate on the very complex and nuanced passage in ST 2-2.2.4: “Is it necessary to believe what can be proved by natural reason?” The answer is in the affirmative: “We must accept by faith not only what is above reason but also what can be known by reason.”" - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

"Thus the same statement that guarantees that God exists and that his most suitable name is He Who Is, also reveals to us the perfect simplicity of the divine essence. And indeed, God did not say: I am this or that, but simply I Am. I am what? I am ‘I Am.Â’ So, more than ever, the statement of Exodus seems to soar above in a kind of empty space, where the attraction of the weight of philosophy can no longer be felt. The work of reason is good, healthy, and important, for it proves that, left to itself, philosophy can establish with certitude the existence of the primary being whom everyone calls God. But a single word of the sacred text at once puts us in personal relations with him. We say his name, and by the simple fact of saying it, it teaches us the simplicity of the divine essence." - Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

"I distinguish three sorts of signs: 1. Accidental signs, or the objects which particular circumstances have connected with some of our ideas, so as to render the one proper to revive the other. 2. Natural signs, or the cries which nature has established to express the passions of joy, of fear, or of grief, 3. Instituted signs, or those which we have chosen ourselves, and bear only an arbitrary relation to our ideas." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"Any room in our house at any time in the day was there to read in or to be read to." - Eudora Welty

"Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience." - Eudora Welty

"I don't know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other" - Eudora Welty

"It's all right, I want to say to the students who write to me, for things to be what they appear to be, and for words to mean what they say. It's all right, too, for words and appearances to mean more than one thing — ambiguity is a fact of life." - Eudora Welty

"Never think you've seen the last of anything." - Eudora Welty

"This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose." - Eugen Herrigel

"If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. There must be an organic unity between past and future lived in the present." - Eugene Peterson

"Ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts." - Eugene Peterson

"There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations called holiness." - Eugene Peterson

"This devalues the experience of suffering." - Eugene Peterson

"Too often we think of religion as a far-off, mysteriously run bureaucracy to which we apply for assistance when we feel the need. We go to a local branch office and direct the clerk (sometimes called a pastor) to fill out our order for God. If we thought about it for two consecutive minutes, we would not want it that way. If God is God at all, he must know more about our needs than we do." - Eugene Peterson

"None of us can help the things life has done to us. TheyÂ’re done before you realize it, and once theyÂ’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what youÂ’d like to be, and youÂ’ve lost your true self forever." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"Music is about communication... it isn't just something that maybe physically sounds good or orally sounds interesting; it's something far, far deeper than that." - Evelyn Glennie, fully Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie

"There is no place in my soul, no corner of my character, where God is not." - Evelyn Underhill

"I put the words down and push them a bit." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"It would be a dull world if we all thought alike." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others." - Felix Adler

"Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil." - Felix Adler

"Never judge by appearances; Judge not a man and things at first sight." - Italian Proverbs

"Poor men do penance for rich men's sins." - Italian Proverbs

"Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny." - Italian Proverbs

"The eye of the master fattens the horse." - Italian Proverbs