Great Throughts Treasury

"We may begin with considering a-new the nature and force of sympathy. The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations, nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, susceptible. As in strings equally bound up, the motion of one communicates itself to the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature." - David Hume

"When men are the most sure and arrogant, they commonly are the most mistaken." - David Hume

"All men of action are dreamers." - James G. Huneker, fully James Gibbons Huneker

"From their own experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn." - Aldous Leonard Huxley

"The world is a mirror of Infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of God." - Aldous Leonard Huxley

"When, for whatever reason, men and women fail to transcend themselves by means of worship, good works and spiritual exercises, they are apt to resort to religion’s chemical surrogates." - Aldous Leonard Huxley

"Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse." - William James

"Men habitually use only a small part of the power they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances." - William James

"I agree that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents." - Thomas Jefferson

"I have not observed men's honesty to increase with their riches." - Thomas Jefferson

"Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them." - Thomas Jefferson

"Men are naturally divided into two parties: (1) those who fear and distrust the people... (2) those who identify themselves with people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider than as the most honest and safe." - Thomas Jefferson

"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." - Thomas Jefferson

"Beware of prejudices. They are like rats, and men's minds are like traps; prejudices get in easily, but it is doubtful if they ever get out... There is nothing respecting which a man must so long unconscious, as of the extent and strength of his prejudices... Opinions grounded [founded] on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence." - Lord Francis Jeffrey

"No man should think that peace comes easily. Peace does not come by merely wanting it, or shouting for it, or marching down Main Street for it. Peace is built brick by brick, mortared by the stubborn effort and the total energy and imagination of able and dedicated men. And it is built in the living faith that, in the end, man can and will master his own destiny." - Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ

"Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression. We have all felt the desire, at times almost victorious desire, to get away from everything and retire into a cottage in the wilderness. But we don't do it, because we are better men and women than we think we are." - Robert Willard Johnson

"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense." -

"Don’t be too hasty... to trust or to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men." -

"Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men." -

"Men do not suspect faults which they do not commit." -

"Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves." -

"Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practice laborious virtues." -

"The men who can be charged with fewest failing are generally most ready to allow them." -

"The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety." -

"Beaten paths are for beaten men." - Eric Allen Johnston

"The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed." - Jenkin Lloyd Jones

"Men in general are too material and do not make enough human contacts. If we search for the fundamentals which actually motivate us, we will find that they come under four headings: love, money, adventure and religion. It is to some of them that we always owe that big urge which pushes us onward. Men who crush these impulses and settle down to everyday routine are bound to sink into mediocrity. No man is a complete unity of himself; he needs the contact, the stimulus and the driving power which is generated by his contact with other men, their ideas and constantly changing scenes." - Edward S. "Ned" Jordan

"How much easier it is to be generous than just! Men are sometimes bountiful who are not honest." -

"Men do not easily rise whose poverty hinders their merit." - Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

"Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged." - Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Faith alone defends." - Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

"Since human beings have a moral conscience, a spiritual self and a physical self, we can choose among various options. And we are responsible for the consequences of our choices. We can put the common interests of humankind above the conflicts of ideological, racial, religious and national groups. We can bring together thought and feeling, politics and moral values, women and men, the underprivileged and the privileged.... The essence of life is to search for happiness. To realize this end, we must become one with the human family, one with the universe... We should live as if we were to die today. We should die as if we live forever." - Petra Kelly, fully Petra Karin Kelley

"Great crises produce great men and great deeds of courage." - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

"When at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment of each one of us - recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state - our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions - were we truly men of courage... were we truly men of judgment... were we truly men of integrity... were we truly men of dedication?" - John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

"In the hour of death the only adequate consolation is that one has not evaded life, but has endured it. What a man shall accomplish or not accomplish, does not lie in his power to decide; he is not the One who will guide the world; he has only to obey... The point consists precisely in loving his neighbor, or, what is essentially the same thing, in living equally for every man. Every other point of view is a contentious one, however advantageous and comfortable and apparently significant this position may be... yet in the hour of death, he will confidently dare say to his soul: “I have done my best; whether I have accomplished anything, I do not know; whether I have helped anyone, I do not know; but that I have lived for them, that I do know, and I know it from the fact that they insulted me. And this is my consolation, that I shall not have to take the secret with me to the grave, that I, in order to have good and undisturbed and comfortable days in life, have denied my kinship to other men, kinship with the poor, in order to live in aristocratic seclusion, or with the distinguished, in order to live in secret obscurity." - Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Associate with men of faith. This tends to be reciprocal. Your faith will communicate itself to them, and their faith to you. do your work in a "faith" atmosphere, and you will work at a maximum advantage. You impress others by your own faith, and they will have faith in you only in the degree that you have faith in yourself." -

"Humility is part of wisdom, and is most becoming in men. But let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness." - Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva

"He is a supreme yogi who regards with equalmindedness all men." - Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL

"Men are not to be judged by their looks, habits, and appearances; but by the character of their lives and conversations, and by their works. It is better to be praised by one's own works than by the words of another." - Roger L'Estrange, fully Sir Roger L'Estrange

"Men indulge those opinions and practices that favor their pretensions." - Roger L'Estrange, fully Sir Roger L'Estrange

"The distinction between men’s and women’s language is a symptom of a problem in our culture, not the problem itself. Basically it reflects the fact that men and women are expected to have different interests and different roles, hold different types of conversations, and react differently to other people." - Robin Lakoff, fully Robin Tolmach Lakoff

"The reason that women are so much more sociable than men is because they act more from the heart than the intellect." -

"We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves: we encourage each other in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself." - Charles Lamb

"Goodness does not more certainly make men happy, than happiness makes them good. We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once; while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual." - Walter Savage Landor

"Men universally are ungrateful toward him who instructs them, unless, in the hours or in the intervals of instruction, he presents a sweet cake to their self-love." - Walter Savage Landor

"Adversity and prosperity have no fixed road; they are evoked by men themselves." -

"Good men instruct each other, and bad men are the materials they work with." -

"Good words shall again you honor in the marketplace; but good deeds shall gain you friends among men." -

"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men." -