Great Throughts Treasury

"Money, material thought it be, does lie at the base of the most useful work you do. In itself nothing, it is the basis of much of the best effort which can be made for spiritual purposes."

"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth."

"Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all."

"A good speech, like a woman's skirt, should be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest. I have been asked to give my address in the remaining five minutes. That I can do! Here it is: 10 Carlton Gardens, London, England."

"Every human soul is of infinite value, eternal, free; no human being, therefore, is so placed as not to have within his reach, in himself and others, objects adequate to infinite endeavor."

"But science is the great instrument of social change, all the greater because its object is not change but knowledge, and its silent appropriation of this dominant function, amid the din of political and religious strife, is the most vital of all the revolutions which have marked the development of modern civilisation."

"Ask with urgency and passion."

"Biography should be written by an acute enemy."

"Enthusiasm moves the world."

"His Majesty?s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

"I thought Winston Churchill was a young man of promise, but it appears he is a young man of promises."

"I never forgive, but I always forget."

"He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and skimming."

"History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other."

"It has always been desirable to tell the truth, but seldom if ever necessary."

"Science preceded the theory of science, and is independent of it. Science preceded naturalism, and will survive it."

"The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done."

"The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish."

"The superstition that all our hours of work are a minus quantity in the happiness of life, and all the hours of idleness are plus ones, is a most ludicrous and pernicious doctrine, and its greatest support comes from our not taking sufficient trouble, not making a real effort, to make work as near pleasure as it can be."

"We sound the future, and learn that after a period, long compared with the divisions of time open to our investigation, the energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish."

"Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life."