Great Throughts Treasury

"The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around."

"The criticisms which have been hurled at me have not worried me. A man cannot control his beliefs. If he is honest in his frank expression of them, that is all that can in justice be required of him. Professor Thomson and a thousand others do not in the least agree with me. His criticism of me, as I read it, charged that because I doubted the soul?s immortality, or ?personality,? as he called it, my mind must be abnormal, ?pathological,? in other, words, diseased... I try to say exactly what I honestly believe to be the truth, and more than that no man can do. I honestly believe that creedists have built up a mighty structure of inaccuracy, based, curiously, on those fundamental truths which I, with every honest man, must not alone admit but earnestly acclaim. I have been working on the same lines for many years. I have tried to go as far as possible toward the bottom of each subject I have studied. I have not reached my conclusions through study of traditions; I have reached them through the study of hard fact. I cannot see that unproved theories or sentiment should be permitted to have influence in the building of conviction upon matters so important. Science proves its theories or it rejects them. I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. I earnestly believe that I am right; I cannot help believing as I do... I cannot accept as final any theory which is not provable. The theories of the theologians cannot be proved. Proof, proof! That is what I always have been after; that is what my mind requires before it can accept a theory as fact. Some things are provable, some things disprovable, some things are doubtful. All the problems which perplex us, now, will, soon or late, be solved, and solved beyond a question through scientific investigation. The thing which most impresses me about theology is that it does not seem to be investigating. It seems to be asserting, merely, without actual study."

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. They may even discover the germ of old age. I don't predict it, but it might be by the sacrifice of animal life human life could be prolonged. Surgery, diet, antiseptics ? these three are the vital things of the future in preserving the health of humanity. There were never so many able, active minds at work on the problems of diseases as now, and all their discoveries are tending to the simple truth ? that you can't improve on nature."

"The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed is called ?acrolein.? It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics, this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes."

"The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most elaborate experiments... Although I was never myself discouraged or hopeless of its success, I cannot say the same for my associates... Through all of the years of experimenting with it, I never once made an associated discovery. It was deductive... The results I achieved were the consequence of invention - pure and simple. I would construct and work along various lines until I found them untenable. When one theory was discarded, I developed another at once. I realized very early that this was the only possible way for me to work out all the problems."

"The dove is my emblem... I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it... I am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill."

"The inventor tries to meet the demand of a crazy civilization."

"The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me."

"The memory of Tom Paine will outlive all this. No man who helped to lay the foundations of our liberty ? who stepped forth as the champion of so difficult a cause ? can be permanently obscured by such attacks. Tom Paine should be read by his countrymen. I commend his fame to their hands."

"The man who doesn?t make up his mind to cultivate the habit of thinking misses the greatest pleasure in life."

"The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work."

"The only time I really become discouraged is when I think of all the things I would like to do and the little time I have in which to do them."

"The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think. It should be the primary purpose of our public schools. The mind of a child is naturally active, it develops through exercise. Give a child plenty of exercise, for body and brain. The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind. It casts the brain into a mold. It insists that the child must accept. It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation."

"The stomach is the only part of man which can be fully satisfied. The yearning of man's brain for new knowledge and experience and for more pleasant and comfortable surroundings never can be completely met. It is an appetite which cannot be appeased."

"The thing I lose patience with the most is the clock. Its hands move too fast."

"The roots of tobacco plants must go clear through to hell. Satan?s principal agent Dyspepsia must have charge of this branch of the vegetable kingdom."

"The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do."

"The terrible thing about interest is that those people who will not be turning a shovel full of dirt on this (Muscle Shoals Dam Project) or be contributing a pound of material towards it will collect more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the material and do all the work on it."

"The very first thing an executive must have is a fine memory. Of course it does not follow that a man with a fine memory is necessarily a fine executive. But if he has the memory he has the first qualification, and if he has not the memory nothing else matters."

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense."

"The United States, and other advanced nations, will someday be able to produce instruments of death so terrible the world will be in abject terror of itself and its ability to end civilization.... Such war-making weapons should be developed - but only for purposes of discovery and experimentation"

"The value of an idea lies in the using of it."

"The world owes nothing to any man, but every man owes something to the world."

"There is almost no limit to which man will not go to avoid thinking."

"There is a great directing head of things and people - a supreme being, who looks after the destinies of the world. I have faith in a supreme being, and all my thoughts are regarding the life after death - where the soul goes, what form it takes and its relations to those now living. I am convinced that the body is made up of entities which are intelligent. When one cuts his finger, I believe it is the intelligence of those entities that heals the wound. When one is sick, it is the intelligence of these entities that brings convalescence. You know that there are living cells in the body so tiny that the microscope cannot show them at all. The entity that gives life and motion to the human body is finer still and lies infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When this entity deserts the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder - deserted, motionless, dead."

"Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession."

"There ain't no rules around here, we're trying to accomplish something."

"There is far more danger in public than in private monopoly, for when Government goes into business it can always shift its losses to the taxpayers. Government never makes ends meet-and that is the first requisite of business."

"There is always a better way."

"There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural."

"There is far more opportunity than there is ability."

"There's a better way to do it. Find it!"

"There is time for everything."

"Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose."

"They say President Wilson has blundered. Perhaps he has, but I notice he usually blunders forward."

"There's a way to do better... find it."

"To have a great idea, have a lot of them."

"Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off.... All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple."

"To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother's keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful ."

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

"To do much clear thinking a person must arrange for regular periods of solitude when they can concentrate and indulge the imagination without distraction."

"To my mind the old masters are not art; their value is in their scarcity."

"To Monsieur Eiffel the Engineer, the brave builder of so gigantic and original a specimen of modern Engineering from one who has the greatest respect and admiration for all Engineers including the Great Engineer the Bon Dieu."

"We are going out with the ladies in yacht to sail, perchance to fish. The lines will be baited at both ends."

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy - sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

"Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine's theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation's leaders when they framed the Constitution."

"Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge."

"Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.' But it is hardly strange. Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind. We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen."

"Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability?. We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation."

"Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless."