Great Throughts Treasury

"Charity is the soul of faith, makes it alive; without love, faith dies." - Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL

"They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all." - Samuel Adams

"I beg to say in reply that if it be decided by both the colored and white workers of your city [Austin] that it would tend to the best interests of the movement to organize separate central bodies there is no reason why such a course should not be pursued." - Samuel Gompers

"We deny the assertion made by some of our opponents when they say the American Federation of Labor is against political action. We are against the the American labor movement being made a political party machine." - Samuel Gompers

"A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness." - Sidney Hook

"Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have , so to speak , pawned a part of their narcissism." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"My visceral perception of brotherhood harmonizes with our best modern biological knowledge. […] Many people think (or fear) that equality of human races represents a hope of liberal sentimentality probably squashed by the hard realities of history. They are wrong. This essay can be summarized in a single phrase, a motto if you will: Human equality is a contingent fact of history. Equality is not true by definition; it is neither an ethical principle (though equal treatment may be) nor a statement about norms of social action. It just worked out that way. A hundred different and plausible scenarios for human history would have yielded other results (and moral dilemmas of enormous magnitude). They didn't happen." - Stephan Jay Gould

"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

"The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"The Patronising of Rascals is a form of the appetite for vice." - Theophrastus NULL

"That even among the most hackneyed and most hardened of malefactors there is still about them a softer part which will give way to the demonstrations of tenderness; that this one ingredient of a better character is still found to survive the dissipation of all the others, that, fallen as a brother may be from the moralities which at one time adorned him, the manifested good will of his fellow-man still carries a charm and an influence along with it; and that, therefore, there lies in this an operation which, as no poverty can vitiate, so no depravity can extinguish." - Thomas Chalmers

"It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it" - Thomas Jefferson

"The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies." - Thomas Jefferson

"We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full." - Thomas Merton

"Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity." - Thomas Merton

"Man was formed for society and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it." - William Blackstone, fully Sir William Blackstone

"He found it inconvenient to be poor." - William Cowper

"Lights of the world, and stars of human race. And, of all lies (be that one poet's boast) the lie that flatters I abhor the most." - William Cowper

"There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only poets know." - William Cowper

"Wretch even then, life's journey just begun." - William Cowper

"We have not the remotest realistic inkling of a consciousness which is not self-consciousness." - Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt

"A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people." - Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

"Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!" - Walter Savage Landor

"But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue… Shake one, and it awakens; then apply its polished lips to your attentive ear, and it remembers its august abodes, and murmurs as the ocean murmurs there… Past are three summers since she first beheld t The ocean; all around the child await some exclamation of amazement here: she coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, is this the mighty ocean? is this all?" - Walter Savage Landor

"When any duty is to be done, it is fortunate for you if you feel like doing it; but, if you do not feel like it, that is no reason for not doing it." - Washington Gladden

"All emanates from Source!...You're not this body and its accomplishments. You are the observer. Notice it all; and be grateful for the abilities you've been given, the motivation to achieve, and the stuff you've accumulated. But give all the credit to the power of intention, which brought you into existence." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"The more things children can do, the greater their opportunity for personal happiness throughout their lives." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"No wonder so many sermons are devoted exclusively to spiritual subjects. If one is living by the tithes of history's most destructive economy, then the disembodiment of the soul becomes the chief of worldly conveniences." - Wendell Berry

"To know all is to forgive all. No commonplace is more untrue. Behavior, whether conditioned by an individual neurosis or by society, can be understood, that is to say, one knows exactly why such and such an individual behaves as he does. But a personal action or deed is always mysterious. When we really act, precisely because it is a matter of free choice, we can never say exactly why we do this rather than that. But it is only deeds that we are required to forgive. If someone does me an injury, the question of forgiveness only arises if I am convinced (a) that the injury he did me was a free act on his part and therefore no less mysterious to him than to me, and (b) that it was me personally whom he meant to injure. He knows as well as they do why they are doing this -- they are a squad, detailed to execute a criminal. They do not know what they are doing, because it is not their business, as executioners, to know whom they are crucifying. If the person who does me an injury does not know what he is doing, then it is as ridiculous for me to talk about forgiving him as it would be for me to forgive a tile which falls on my head in a gale." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

"To err is human; but contrition felt for the crime distinguishes the virtuous from the wicked." - Vittorio Alfieri

"A people that sells its own children is more condemnable than the buyer; this commerce demonstrates our superiority; he who gives himself a master was born to have one." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"It is easier to tell our therapist about our sex life than it is to tell our accountant about our finances." - Vicki Robin

"That a cat may change into a lion, prefects of police do not believe possible; this can happen, nonetheless." - Victor Hugo

"The habit of reading... produces dignity of manners... custom... is more despotic than law." - Victor Hugo

"We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

"And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail. Unwilling to school. As you Like It, Act ii, Scene 7" - William Shakespeare

"Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. Julius Caesar, Act iii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"Come, gentle night, — come, loving black brow'd night, give me my Romeo; and when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of Heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun. Romeo and Juliet, Act iii, Scene 2" - William Shakespeare

"Discretion is the better part of valour. [The better part of valour is discretion.] Henry IV, Part I, Act v, Scene 4" - William Shakespeare

"Who shall tax successful villainy, or call the rising traitor to account?" - William Havard

"O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year. The Merry Wives of Windsor (Anne Page at III, iv)" - William Shakespeare

"The hanging gate, of something like trelliswork, was propped on a pole, and he could see that the house was tiny and flimsy. He felt a little sorry for the occupants of such a place--and then asked himself who in this world had a temporary shelter." - Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

"He will not do death the honor of taking it into account." - Elias Canetti

"So, of his gentleness, Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom." - William Shakespeare

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