Great Throughts Treasury

"Heads are wisest when they are cool, and hearts are strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals."

"There are no warlike peoples - just warlike leaders."

"There is no problem of human nature which is insoluble."

"Hearts are the strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals."

"I have a deep-seated bias against hate and intolerance. I have a bias against racial and religious bigotry. I have a bias that leads me to believe in the essential goodness of my fellow man, which leads me to believe that no problem of human relations is ever insoluble."

"If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in a person."

"The United Nations is our one great hope for a peaceful and free world."

"To make his way, the Negro must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity. He must gear himself to hard work all the way. He can never let up. He can never have too much preparation and training. He must be a strong competitor. He must adhere staunchly to the basic principle that anything less than full equality is not enough. If he compromises on that principle his soul is dead."

"To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war."

"We can never have too much preparation and training. We must be a strong competitor. We must adhere staunchly to the basic principle that anything less than full equality is not enough. If we compromise on that principle our soul is dead."

"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."

"You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hard-working. Never be fainthearted. Be resolute, but never bitter... Permit no one to dissuade you from pursuing the goals you set for yourselves. Do not fear to pioneer, to venture down new paths of endeavor."

"And so class will someday supplant race in world affairs. Race war will then be merely a side-show to the gigantic class war which will be waged in the big tent we call the world."

"In his scientific genius, man has wrought material miracles and has transformed his world. He has harnessed nature and has developed great civilizations. But he has never learned very well how to live with himself. The values he has created have been predominantly materialistic; his spiritual values have lagged far behind. He has demonstrated little spiritual genius and has made little progress toward the realization of human brotherhood. In the contemporary atomic age, this could prove man's fatal weakness."

"Man has but little heeded the advice of the wise men. He has been - fatefully, if not willingly - less virtuous, less constant, less rational, less peaceful than he knows how to be, than he is fully capable of being. He has been led astray from the ways of peace and brotherhood by his addiction to concepts and attitudes of narrow nationalism, racial and religious bigotry, greed and lust for power."

"Man's inventive genius has so far outstretched his reason - not his capacity to reason but his willingness to apply reason - that the peoples of the world find themselves precariously on the brink of total disaster."

"May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us."

"Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life."

"The barriers of race can be surmounted."

"The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights."

"The United Nations stands for the freedom and equality of all peoples, irrespective of race, religion, or ideology."

"The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure."

"There are no warlike people, just warlike leaders."

"We must adhere strongly to the basic principle that anything less than full equality is not enough. If we compromise on that principle our soul is dead."