Great Throughts Treasury

"It is not by sitting still at a grand distance and calling the human race larvae that men are to be helped. " - Albert Einstein

"Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we know it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking." - Albert Einstein

"Perfection is something we should all strive for. It's a duty and a joy to perfect one's nature... The most difficult thing is love. A loveless, driving person that just competes in the rat race is far from perfection in my book." - R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

"We must fight as a race for everything that makes for a better country and a better world. We are dreaming idiots and trusting fools to do anything less." - Ralph Bunche, fully Ralph Johnson Bunche

"All fossil anthropoids found hitherto have been known only from mandibular or maxillary fragments, so far as crania are concerned, and so the general appearance of the types they represented had been unknown; consequently, a condition of affairs where virtually the whole face and lower jaw, replete with teeth, together with the major portion of the brain pattern, have been preserved, constitutes a specimen of unusual value in fossil anthropoid discovery. Here, as in Homo rhodesiensis, Southern Africa has provided documents of higher primate evolution that are amongst the most complete extant. Apart from this evidential completeness, the specimen is of importance because it exhibits an extinct race of apes intermediate between living anthropoids and man ... Whether our present fossil is to be correlated with the discoveries made in India is not yet apparent; that question can only be solved by a careful comparison of the permanent molar teeth from both localities. It is obvious, meanwhile, that it represents a fossil group distinctly advanced beyond living anthropoids in those two dominantly human characters of facial and dental recession on one hand, and improved quality of the brain on the other. Unlike Pithecanthropus, it does not represent an ape-like man, a caricature of precocious hominid failure, but a creature well advanced beyond modern anthropoids in just those characters, facial and cerebral, which are to be anticipated in an extinct link between man and his simian ancestor. At the same time, it is equally evident that a creature with anthropoid brain capacity and lacking the distinctive, localised temporal expansions which appear to be concomitant with and necessary to articulate man, is no true man. It is therefore logically regarded as a man-like ape. I propose tentatively, then, that a new family of Homo-simidæ be created for the reception of the group of individuals which it represents, and that the first known species of the group be designated Australopithecus africanus, in commemoration, first, of the extreme southern and unexpected horizon of its discovery, and secondly, of the continent in which so many new and important discoveries connected with the early history of man have recently been made, thus vindicating the Darwinian claim that Africa would prove to be the cradle of mankind. " - Raymond Dart, fully Raymond Arthur Dart

"He had his virtues. This old year was impartial. No discrimination knew he between classes or conditions. He meted the same number of hours to the man in the hovel and the man on the throne. The hour-glass be turned the same number of times for him whose garments were plain and coarse and him who wore garments of costliest fabric. Like God who sent him, this old year was no respecter of persons. He showed constant vigilance. No laggard, no loiterer, he. Having been sent to fill a space in time's calendar, he filled it to the full. Sent to mark off so many hours on time's dial, his hand was never slack; he slept not for a single swing of the pendulum. May we keep our vigils as faithfully! He fulfilled his mission. God's plans are deep, and we know little, perhaps, as the mission of any of these passing years, decades, centuries, and cycles; yet we know that each fulfills a purpose in the betterment of humanity; and the closing year has served well his embassy in bringing the race nearer its final goal. A prize, peerless and bright, awaits each of us if we are as true to our mission as the old year has been to his." - James Monroe Hubbert

"The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery - not over nature but of ourselves" - Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"The human race is challenged more than ever before to demonstrate our mastery - not over nature but of ourselves." - Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year than the human race has in its entire history." - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury

"If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be: 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'" - Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West

"It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth." - Rebecca West, pen name of Mrs. Cicily Maxwell Andrews, born Fairfield, aka Dame Rebecca West

"Still the race of hero spirits pass the lamp from hand to hand." - Charles Kingsley

"I believe natural selection represents a truly hideous sum total of misery. When you look at something like a bounding lion, a sprinting cheetah, and the antelopes they are bounding and sprinting after, you're seeing the end product of a long, vicious arms race. All along the route of that arms race lie the corpses of the antelopes that didn't make it, and the lions and cheetahs that starved to death. So it is a process of vicious misery that has given rise to the immense beauty, elegance, and diversity that we see in the world today. Nature is beautiful. Even a cheetah as a killing machine is beautiful. But the process that gave rise to it is, indeed, nature red in tooth and claw. If nature were kind, she would at least make the minor concession of anaesthetising caterpillars before they are eaten alive from within." - Richard Dawkins

"Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion." - Richard Dawkins

"I have no religion in the formal sense of the word... I have no race except that which is forced upon me. I have no country except that to which I'm obliged to belong. I have no traditions. I'm free. I have only the future." - Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright

"The human race cannot go forward without liberty. If this be correct, then all people everywhere should strive for liberty. If they achieve liberty, they will get a chance to pursue happiness and perhaps will be able to develop toward the ultimate goal of creation." - Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth." - Rita Mae Brown

"I will never submit to fight beneath that banner with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." - Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd

"They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places." - Robert Frost

"They can't scare me with their empty spaces between stars -on stars where no human race is I have it in me so much nearer home to scare myself with my own desert places." - Robert Frost

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying : And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he's a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he's to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer ; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may go marry : For having lost but once your prime You may for ever tarry." - Robert Herrick

"There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't sit still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Their's is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest." - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

"There's A race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest. If they just went straight they might go far, They are strong and brave and true; But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new. They say: "Could I find my proper groove, What a deep mark I would make!" So they chop and change, and each fresh move Is only a fresh mistake. And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last. He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance; He has just done things by half. Life's been a jolly good joke on him, And now is the time to laugh. Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win; He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone; He's a man who won't fit in. " - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

"SCORN NOT THE LEAST - WHERE wards are weak and foes encount'ring strong, Where mightier do assault than do defend, The feebler part puts up enforcèd wrong, And silent sees that speech could not amend. Yet higher powers must think, though they repine, When sun is set, the little stars will shine. While pike doth range the seely tench doth fly, And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish ; Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by, These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish. There is a time even for the worm to creep, And suck the dew while all her foes do sleep. The merlin cannot ever soar on high, Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase ; The tender lark will find a time to fly, And fearful hare to run a quiet race : He that high growth on cedars did bestow, Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow. In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe ; The lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, Yet he to heaven, to Hell did Dives go. We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May, Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away. " - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

"There is a largeness about mathematics that transcends race and time; mathematics may humbly help in the market-place, but it also reaches to the stars." - Robert James Turnbull

"Certain it is that the critical issues, the thorny problems that wait upon men's solution, have remained the same for almost twenty centuries. And why? Because the whole of history and of life hinges on the person of Jesus Christ. Either men anchor themselves on Him and His Church, and thus enjoy the blessings of light and joy, right order and peace; or they live their lives apart from Him; many positively oppose Him, and deliberately exclude themselves from the Church. The result can only be confusion in their lives, bitterness in their relations with one another, and the savage threat of war. " - Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, aka Vatican II

"He is very sorry that such undesirable things are every now and then cropping up in … and discouraging you in your work, keeping you from devoting all your spare time in teaching the Cause, and spreading its principles. He does not wish you, however, to lose heart from such things. As the Cause grows its difficulties will increase and its problems will become more numerous. The friends, especially the older ones, should therefore try and stand unmoved by them. In fact the more their difficulties will increase the more they have to take courage and try to solve them. The Master has often said that sorrows are like furrows, the deeper they go the more productive the land becomes. If this problem. .. should be settled other problems will arise. Are the friends to become discouraged or are they to follow the footsteps of the Master and consider them more as chances to show their tenacity of belief and spirit of sacrifice?" - Shoghí Effendi, fully Shoghí Effendí Rabbání

"So the ... the helm is right here. And that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"Our self-conceit sustains, and always must sustain us." - Samuel Butler

"I agree with you, too, that it is hardly fair to have our people crowded out of employment by those who simply come here for the purpose of working at low wages -- higher than those they may be accustomed to in their own countries-- and then after a while return there. I am also free to say to you, however, that I do not see how a remedy is to be obtained without closing the ports entirely, and as to that there is considerable division of opinion. It may not be amiss to call attention to the fact that the introduction of one machine in a trade may throw more men out of employment than the Greeks who come here even in the manner which you describe." - Samuel Gompers

"Labor realizes the fact that industry and commercial competition constantly becomes keener the world over; that standing armies are often used for the purpose of opening up new markets for so-called surplus products; that these entail the dangers of fratricidal wars between international competitors, and that, therefore, upon the shoulders of the intelligent, working wealth-producers, the wage-earners of all countries, devolves the larger responsibility for the preservation of Peace; that the voice of labor must become more potent in the formation of a great international public opinion, such a public opinion as before whose supreme tribunal both monarch and merchant must inevitably bow, and that wars of aggrandizement and greed must be relegated to the oblivion of the barbaric ages." - Samuel Gompers

"Of all the ills that mankind suffers from the unjust and cruel tendencies of modern methods of wealth producing, [child labor] seems to me to rise to the most horrible proportions. Our centers of industries, with their mills, factories and workshops, are teeming with young and innocent children. . . . The hope of the perpetuity of free institutions is endangered when the rising generation is robbed of the opportunity to enjoy the healthful recreation of the playground or the mental improvements of the school house. The children of the workers have none to raise a voice in their defense other than organized wage workers, and they should and will take steps to protect them from the contemptible avarice of unscrupulous corporations and employers." - Samuel Gompers

"Time is the most valuable thing on earth: time to think, time to act, time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens." - Samuel Gompers

"Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"An historian should yield himself to his subject, become immersed in the place and period of his choice, standing apart from it now and then for a fresh view." - Samuel Eliot Morison

"And so sweetly adapted is the child-mind to the Gospel and the Gospel to the child-mind that they cheerfully coalesce, and the babe's milk is not more palatable and nutritious than is the bread of life to the new-born soul. No one can say how soon a child may intelligently apprehend the divine truth. Many saints of God have no memory of the period in their early lives when Christ was not dear to their hearts. When they were born from above they do not remember any more than they can recollect the moment when they first breathed the breath of life. It is not so with all; perhaps not so with the most. But the true theory of the Gospel is that children should be brought up on it, as their daily food; be nurtured b it; renewed by the Holy Spirit, and made heirs of salvation." - Samuel I. Prime, fully Samuel Irenaeus Prime

"Thought is action in rehearsal." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered: Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of s gigantic hound!" - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes." - Clement of Alexandria, originally Titus Flavius Clemens NULL

"Secular or Civil authority is instituted by men; it is in the people unless they bestow it on a Prince. This Power is immediately in the Multitude, as in the subject of it; for this Power is in the Divine Law, but the Divine Law hath given this power to no particular man. If the Positive Law be taken away, there is left no Reason amongst the Multitude (who are Equal) one rather than another should bear the Rule over the Rest. Power is given to the multitude to one man, or to more, by the same Law of Nature; for the Commonwealth cannot exercise this Power, therefore it is bound to bestow it upon some One man or some Few. It depends upon the Consent of the multitude to ordain over themselves a King or other Magistrates, and if there be a lawful cause, the multitude may change the Kingdom into an Aristocracy or Democracy." - Robert Bellarmine, fully Saint Robert Bellarmine

"Morality has need, that it may be well received, of the mask of fable and the charm of poetry: truth pleases less when it is naked; and it is the only virgin whom we best like to see a little clothed." - Stanislas de Boufflers, fully Marquis Stanislas-Jean de Boufflers, Chevalier de Boufflers

"The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse - as a luxury befitting a young man." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"The only excuse for God is that He does not exist." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"In his eyes shone the reflection of the most beautiful planet in the Universe---a planet that is not too hot and not too cold; that has liquid water on the surface and where the gravity is just right for human beings and the atmosphere is perfect for them to breathe; where there are mountains and deserts and oceans and islands and forests and trees and birds and plants and animals and insects and people---lots and lots of people. Where there is life. Some of it, possibly, intelligent." - Stephen Hawking

"It would be hypocritical to complain. I can generally ignore it by going off to think in 11 dimensions. [On his lack of privacy]" - Stephen Hawking

"The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car." - Stephen Hawking

"We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics." - Stephen Hawking

"There are millions of people who think that having heard about something is the same as knowing it, and their notion of culture is a mixture of elegant lifestyle and big names." - Stephen Vizinczey, born István Vizinczey

"In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd." - Stefan Zweig

"Coming up home the other night in my car (the Guy Street car), I heard a man who was hanging onto a strap say: “The drama is just turning into a bunch of talk.” This set me thinking; and I was glad that it did, because I am being paid by this paper to think once a week, and it is wearing. Some days I never think from morning till night." - Stephen Leacock, fully Stephen Butler Leacock