Great Throughts Treasury

"May God console you! ... What saddens you ... is the fact that, others have occupied the Churches by violence, while during this time you are on the outside. It is a fact that they have the premises --- but you have the Apostolic Faith. They can occupy our Churches, but they are outside the true faith. You remain outside the places of worship, but the faith dwells within you. Let us consider: What is more important, the place of worship or the faith? The true faith, obviously. Who has lost and who has won in this struggle --- the one who keeps the premises or the one who keeps the faith? True, the premises are good when the Apostolic Faith is preached there; they are holy if everything takes place in a holy way ... You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your faith, beloved brothers. And we believe that God will give us our Churches back some day. Thus, the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. The claim that they represent the Church; but in reality they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray." - Saint Athanasius, aka Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Confessor, St. Athanasius the Apostolic NULL

"I inquired what wickedness is, and I didn't find a substance, but a perversity of will twisted away from the highest substance – You oh God – towards inferior things, rejecting its own inner life and swelling with external matter." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Ye have enemies; for who can live on this earth without them? Take heed to yourselves: love them. In no way can thy enemy so hurt thee by his violence, as thou dost hurt thyself if thou love him not. And let it not seem to you impossible to love him. Believe first that it can be done, and pray that the will of God may be done in you. For what good can thy neighbor's ill do to thee? If he had no ill, he would not even be thine enemy. Wish him well, then, that he may end his ill, and he will be thine enemy no longer. For it is not the human nature in him that is at enmity with thee, but his sin." - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Never look a gift horse in the mouth!" - Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

"Enter into the Church and wash away your sins. For here there is a hospital and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed again to enter the Church, be ashamed when you sin, but not when you repent." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"No one can harm the man who does himself no wrong." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"I cannot think why we should be astonished at all the evils which exist in the Church, when those who ought to be models on which all may pattern their virtues are annulling the work wrought in the religious Orders by the spirit of the saints of old." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"I had one brother almost of my own age, whom I loved best... We used to read the lives of the Saints together. And when I read of the martyrdoms which they suffered for the love of God, I used to think that they had bought their entry into God's presence very cheaply. Then I fervently longed to die like them, not out of any conscious love for Him, but in order to attain, as quickly as they had, those joys which, as I read, are laid up in Heaven. I used to discuss with my brother ways and means of becoming martyrs, and we agreed to go together to the land of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, so that we might be beheaded there. I believe that our Lord had given us courage enough even at that tender age, if only we could have seen a way. But our parents seemed to us a very great hindrance." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"May it please His Majesty that we fear Him whom we ought to fear, and understand that one venial sin can do us more harm than all hell together; for that is the truth. The evil spirits keep us in terror, because we expose ourselves to the assaults of terror by our attachments to honors, possessions, and pleasures. For then the evil spirits, uniting themselves with us, — we become our own enemies when we love and seek what we ought to hate, — do us great harm. We ourselves put weapons into their hands, that they may assail us; those very weapons with which we should defend ourselves. It is a great pity. But if, for the love of God, we hated all this and set about His service in earnest, Satan would fly away before such realities, as from the plague. He is the friend of lies, and a lie himself. He will have nothing to do with those who walk in the truth. When he sees the understanding of any one obscured, he simply helps to pluck out his eyes; if he sees any one already blind, seeking peace in vanities, — for all the things of this world are so utterly vanity, that they seem to be but the playthings of a child, — he sees at once that such a one is a child; he treats him as a child, and ventures to wrestle with him — not once, but often." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"She becomes brutally aware of her insignificance and realizes how little we would be able to do to help ourselves if the Beloved ever decided to abandon us." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"To like and dislike the same things, that is indeed true friendship [what makes a solid friendship]." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"If, in all this civilization, and if, in all the wealth produced, if in all this great fertile country of ours . . . we assert first, that wherever and whenever there be one human soul in our country walking the streets unable to find the opportunity to perform work and service to society, to demand in return for it the decent livelihood with opportunities for the cultivation of the best that is in us, if there is that opportunity denied to any one single man or woman in all this country, to him or to her all our boasted civilization is a sham." - Samuel Gompers

"I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife." - Samuel Richardson

"O great soul, he who, taking his stand on pure knowledge, thus regards and honours all beings as myself, who has the same attitude towards a low born one as to a Brahmana, towards a thief as to a supporter of the Brahmanas, towards a spark of fire as to the sun, and towards a ruffian as to a kind man; he is considered sage." - Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL

"Don't kill is a dead precept. Excuse me is an actual working precept." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi

"What is true zazen? What do you mean by Zen becomes Zen and you become you? You become you is a very important point. You become you. When you become you, even though you are in bed, you may not be you most of the time. Even though you are sitting here, I wonder whether you are you in its true sense. So to be you is zazen." - Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi

"Human rights is the only ideology that deserves to survive." - Simon Wiesenthal

"I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance" - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"I shall never do that,' I answered; 'you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience. I have not the courage to force myself to seek beautiful prayers in books; not knowing which to choose I act as children do who cannot read; I say quite simply to the good God what I want to tell Him, and He always understands me." - Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

"You knew all my intimate thoughts and cleared up all my doubts. I once told you how astonished I was that God does not give equal glory in heaven to all His chosen. I was afraid they were not at all equally happy. You made me bring Daddy’s tumbler and put it by the side of my thimble. You filled them both with water and asked me which was fuller. I told you they were both full to the brim and that it was impossible to put more water in them than they could hold. And so, Mother darling, you made me understand that in heaven God will give His chosen their fitting glory and that the last will have no reason to envy the first. By such means, you made me understand the most sublime mysteries and gave my soul its essential food." - Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

"[A doctor] preserves, if it already exists, the health and good habit of the flesh, or if absent, recalls it… But the scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and give it to God." - Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

"The principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagation of the holy Catholic faith." - Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola

"Like the sun's rays passing through a crack and lighting up the house, show up even the finest dust, the fear of the Lord on entering the heart of a man show up all his sins." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites

"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

"Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the majesty and law of God, that they think any service is good enough for him, and conformable to his law. The dullest and deadest time we think fittest to pay God a service in: when sleep is ready to close our eyes, and we are unfit to serve ourselves, we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God. How few morning sacrifices hath God from many persons and families! Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments, without any thought of their Creator and Preserver, or any reflection upon his will as the rule of our daily obedience." - Stephen Charnock

"That which acts for an end unknown to itself, depends upon some overruling wisdom that knows that end. Who should direct them in all those ends, but He that bestowed a being upon them for those ends; who knows what is convenient for their life, security, and propagation of their natures? An exact knowledge is necessary both of what is agreeable to them, and the means whereby they must attain it, which, since it is not inherent in them, is in that wise God who puts those instincts into them, and governs them in the exercise of them to such ends." - Stephen Charnock

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." - Stephen Hawking

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We ve created life in our own image." - Stephen Hawking

"If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away." - Stephen Hawking

"Quiet people have the loudest minds." - Stephen Hawking

"This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it." - Thich Nhất Hanh

"My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand." - Thich Nhất Hanh

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you" - Thomas Jefferson

"For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State (that is to say, of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes." - Thomas Jefferson

"I have sometimes asked myself whether my country is the better for my having lived at all? I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the following things; but they would have been done by others; some of them, perhaps, a little better." - Thomas Jefferson

"We are all doubtless bound to contribute a certain portion of our income to the support of charitable and other useful public institutions. But it is a part of our duty also to apply our contributions in the most effectual way we can to secure this object. The question then is whether this will not be better done by each of us appropriating our whole contribution to the institutions within our reach, under our own eye, and over which we can exercise some useful control? Or would it be better that each should divide the sum he can spare among all the institutions of his State or the United States? Reason and the interest of these institutions themselves, certainly decide in favor of the former practice." - Thomas Jefferson

"We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed." - Thomas Jefferson

"But was it not true that there were people, certain individuals, whom one found it impossible to picture dead, precisely because they were so vulgar? That was to say: they seemed so fit for life, so good at it, that they would never die, as if they were unworthy of the consecration of death." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question." - Thomas Merton

"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith." - Thomas Merton

"God seeks Himself in us, and the aridity and sorrow of our heart is the sorrow of God who is not known in us, who cannot find Himself in us because we do not dare to believe or trust the incredible truth that He could live in us, and live there out of choice, out of preference." - Thomas Merton

"I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts." - Thomas Merton

"If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity's point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." - Thomas Nagel

"From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?" - Thomas Paine