Great Throughts Treasury

"The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training." - Thomas Jefferson

"The tender breasts of ladies were not formed for political convulsion." - Thomas Jefferson

"To me ... it appears that there have been differences of opinion and party differences, from the first establishment of governments to the present day, and on the same question which now divides our own country; that these will continue through all future time; that everyone takes his side in favor of the many or of the few, according to his constitution and the circumstances in which he is placed; that opinions, which are equally honest on both sides, should not affect personal esteem or social intercourse; that as we judge between the Claudii and the Gracchi, the Wentworths and the Hampdens of past ages, so of those among us whose names may happen to be remembered for a while, the next generations will judge, favorably or unfavorably, according to the complexion of individual minds and" - Thomas Jefferson

"The administration's highest priority over the next seven months is to ward off what now looks like a Democratic victory in the November elections. It's hard to believe his stock has fallen that low with the president. Karl got him re-elected, and Karl was not a champion of war in Iraq." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"The biggest human temptation is… to settle for too little. The things I thought were so important -- because of the effort I put into them -- have turned out to be of small value. And the things I never thought about, the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect, were the things that mattered." - Thomas Merton

"The dread of being open to the ideas of others generally comes from our hidden insecurity about our own convictions. We fear that we may be converted – or perverted – by a pernicious doctrine. On the other hand, if we are mature and objective in our open-mindedness, we may find that viewing things from a basically different perspective – that of our adversary – we discover our own truth in a new light and are able to understand our own ideal more realistically." - Thomas Merton

"The purpose of education is to show us how to define ourselves authentically and spontaneously in relation to our world—not to impose a prefabricated definition of the world, still less an arbitrary definition of ourselves as individuals. The world is made up of the people who are fully alive in it: that is, of the people who can be themselves in it and can enter into a living and fruitful relationship with each other in it. The world is, therefore, more real in proportion as the people in it are able to be more fully and more humanly alive: that is to say, better able to make a lucid and conscious use of their freedom. Basically, this freedom must consist first of all in the capacity to choose their own lives, to find themselves on the deepest possible level. A superficial freedom to wander aimlessly here and there, to taste this or that, to make a choice of distractions … is simply a sham. It claims to be a freedom of choice when it has evaded the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses. It is not free because it is unwilling to face the risk of self-discovery. Freedom of choice is not, itself, the perfection of liberty. But it helps us take our first step toward freedom or slavery, spontaneity or compulsion. The free man is the one whose choices have given him the power to stand on his own feet and determine his own life according to the higher light and spirit that are in him. The slave, in the spiritual order, is the man whose choices have destroyed all spontaneity in him and have delivered him over, bound hand and foot, to his own compulsions, idiosyncrasies and illusions, so that he never does what he really wants to do, but only what he has to do." - Thomas Merton

"The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is in fact an intensification of life a completeness a fullness a wholeness of life." - Thomas Merton

"They [referring to participants in a walk from San Francisco to Moscow plagued with many difficulties] are all concerned about the fact that their own human failings and incompatibilities came out a bit. That is all right, though. It has to be that way. Another form of poverty that we have to accept. We have got to be instruments of God and realize at the same time that we are very poor and defective instruments. It is important to resist the feelings of resentment and impatience we get over our own failings because this makes us project our faults onto other people, instead of bearing their burdens along with our own." - Thomas Merton

"If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expense. Their taxes are few, because their government is just: and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults." - Thomas Paine

"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity." - Thomas Paine

"The Christian religion begins with a dream and ends with a murder." - Thomas Paine

"There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required." - Thomas Paine

"They may be all comprehended under three heads -- 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man." - Thomas Paine

"We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute." - Thomas Paine

"The essence of the leader as artist is consciousness-raising and unlocking the energies and talents of fellow associates. Leaders at their best are not involved in doing great deeds so much as getting their followers to believe they can do great deeds and excel. Leaders define and defend and promote values. Or they help redefine values, and understand when, in Lincoln’s phrase, the dogmas of the past are inadequate for the stormy present. They understand when new circumstances call for new vision. Leaders are skilled listeners and learners, carefully consulting their own and their colleagues’ values, beliefs, and passions. As important as anything else, a leader has to nurture trust and self-confidence. Associates and followers expect leaders to have bold visions and to pursue them with enthusiasm. People being led yearn for a mission or vision that is clearly stated." - Thomas Cronin, fully Thomas Edward Cronin

"Great teachers know that they are always on stage and that who they are, how they act, and what they believe are as important as what they teach. Teaching, like leadership, is a performing art. Nonverbal behavior -- eye contact, posture, tone of voice, intensity, facial expression, and attitude -- have as much impact as, if not more than, what is said. Whether people listen to and believe, as opposed to just hear, a teacher depends on a host of variables." - Thomas Cronin, fully Thomas Edward Cronin

"All of Jewish philosophy is but an attempt to fit inside the human mind that which is contained within the heart of a simple Jew. " - Tzvi Freeman

"Beauty cannot be touched. It cannot be described or explained. The more we uncover Beauty, the more it eludes us. Beauty is where the world makes a window for the light of the infinite to shine in." - Tzvi Freeman

"A knave is one who disobeys the imperatives of conscience; a fool is one who cannot hear or understand them." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"No civilization can live without ideals, or to put it another way, without a firm faith in moral ideas." - W. T. Stace, fully Walter Terence Stace

"The essential character of Neo-Platonism comes out in its theory of the mystical exaltation of the subject to God. It is the extremity of subjectivism, the forcing of the individual subject to the centre of the universe, to the position of the Absolute Being. And it follows naturally upon the heels of Scepticism. In the Sceptics all faith in the power of thought and reason had finally died out. They {377} took as their watchword the utter impotence of reason to reach the truth. From this it was but a step to the position that, if we cannot attain truth by the natural means of thought, we will do so by a miracle. If ordinary consciousness will not suffice, we will pass beyond ordinary consciousness altogether. Neo-Platonism is founded upon despair, the despair of reason. It is the last frantic struggle of the Greek spirit to reach, by desperate means, by force, the point which it felt it had failed to reach by reason. It seeks to take the Absolute by storm. It feels that where sobriety has failed, the violence of spiritual intoxication may succeed. It was natural that philosophy should end here. For philosophy is founded upon reason. It is the effort to comprehend, to understand, to grasp the reality of things intellectually. Therefore it cannot admit anything higher than reason. To exalt intuition, ecstasy, or rapture, above thought--this is death to philosophy. Philosophy in making such an admission, lets out its own life-blood, which is thought. In Neo-Platonism, therefore, ancient philosophy commits suicide. This is the end. The place of philosophy is taken henceforth by religion. Christianity triumphs, and sweeps away all independent thought from its path. There is no more philosophy now till a new spirit of enquiry and wonder is breathed into man at the Renaissance and the Reformation. Then the new era begins, and gives birth to a new philosophic impulse, under the influence of which we are still living. But to reach that new era of philosophy, the human spirit had first to pass through the arid wastes of Scholasticism." - W. T. Stace, fully Walter Terence Stace

"When you know a lot, it’s all too easy to start teaching. But coaching is about helping him discover what he already knows, or can find out for himself. Teaching takes a long time and is about imparting knowledge. Coaching can be viewed not so much as a process of adding as it is a process of subtracting, or unlearning whatever is getting in the way of movement toward the client’s desired goal." - Tim Gallwey, fully W. Timothy Gallwey

"When we base our self-worth on our performance plus the opinion of others we will miss out on the joy of true significance." - Wally Armstrong and Ken Blanchard

"A Song : On The Green Margin - On the green margin of the brook, Despairing Phyllida reclined, Whilst every sigh, and every look, Declared the anguish of her mind. Am I less lovely then? (she cries, And in the waves her form surveyed); Oh yes, I see my languid eyes, My faded cheek, my colour fled: These eyes no more like lightning pierced, These cheeks grew pale, when Damon first His Phyllida betrayed. The rose he in his bosom wore, How oft upon my breast was seen! And when I kissed the drooping flower, Behold, he cried, it blooms again! The wreaths that bound my braided hair, Himself next day was proud to wear At church, or on the green. While thus sad Phyllida lamented, Chance brought unlucky Thyrsis on; Unwillingly the nymph consented, But Damon first the cheat begun. She wiped the fallen tears away, Then sighed and blushed, as who would say Ah! Thyrsis, I am won. " - William Cowper

"He that holds fast the golden mean, and lives contently between the little and the great, feels not the wants that pinch the poor, nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door." - William Cowper

"Mountains interpos'd make enemies of nations, who had else, like kindred drops, been mingled into one." - William Cowper

"Nothing in this world is hidden forever. The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

"To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

"However the development proceeds in detail, the path so far traced by the quantum theory indicates that an understanding of those still unclarified features of atomic physics can only be acquired by foregoing visualization and objectification to an extent greater than that customary hitherto. We have probably no reason to regret this, because the thought of the great epistemological difficulties with which the visual atom concept of earlier physics had to contend gives us the hope that the abstracter atomic physics developing at present will one day fit more harmoniously into the great edifice of Science." - Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg

"For my confirmation, I didn't get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift." - Wernher von Braun, fully Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun

"Out of that vision of Almighty Man that we call Communism and that agony of souls and bodies that we call the revolution of the 20th century was left that pinch of irreducible dust: “Who pays is boss, and who takes money must also give something.” It might stand as the motto of every welfare philosophy." - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

"The pessimist stared at his visitor. He had never talked with the Devil before. But he had read descriptions of him by people who had and who remembered Satan as a goat, a bull, a dog, a cat, a big black man with horns, claws and a tail. The presence beside him looked distinguished, relaxed, urbane. Except for a face too characterful to be contemporary, the Devil might have been a movie magnate, an airline executive, a college president, a great surgeon or a grain speculator. “And yet,” thought the pessimist, “those are certainly not the eyes of a Yale man.”" - Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

"Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan." - Wilhelm Reich

"The real artist is in humanity. What are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of them all." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done. From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells; but I with mournful tread walk the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead." - Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

"The task is not simply to reiterate old poetry, but to learn from its cadences what now needs to be uttered. Both the distorted chosen people and the imperious empire run roughshod over such utterance. But the poet never doubts that the utterance has staying power, for when rightly uttered, it may indeed be "a word from the LORD."" - Walter Brueggemann

"There are many who are hypocrites although they think they are not, and there are many who are afraid of being hypocrites although they certainly are not. Which is the one and which is the other God knows, and none but He." - Walter Hilton

"He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so." - Walter Lippmann

"If the estimate of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is correct, then Russia has lost the cold war in Western Europe." - Walter Lippmann

"Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience." - Walter Lippmann

"Its massive height near the City of Heaven joins a thousand mountains to the corner of the sea. Clouds, when I look back, close behind me, mists, when I enter them, are gone. A central peak divides the wilds and weather into many valleys... Needing a place to spend the night, I call to a wood-cutter over the river." - Wang Wei, aka Wang Youcheng

"Nature is the original character of the mind. Heaven is the source of Nature." - Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an

"We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven't devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows." - Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis

"Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell." - Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha

"If you want to know what your thoughts were like yesterday, look at your body today. If you want to know what your body will be like tomorrow, look at your thoughts today." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"If you're always in a hurry, always trying to get ahead of the other guy, or someone else's performance is what motivates you, then that person is in control of you." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"In a world of individuals, comparison is a senseless activity." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"Prosperity is not the result of following a strict set of gimmicks and strategies, it is a mind-set, a mind-set that is centered on your ability to manifest miracles. Whatever you have believed to be impossible, shift it around to create an inner prosperity picture." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"The qualities of creativity and genius are within you, awaiting your decision to match up with the power of intention." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer