Great Throughts Treasury

"Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of defeat, and when it comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name"

"Morn shall meet noon while the flower-stems yet move, though the wind dieth soon"

"Memory and imagination help a man as he works. Not only his own thoughts, but the thoughts of the men of past ages guide his hands and, as part of the human race, he creates."

"My work is the embodiment of dreams in one form or another."

"No man is good enough to be another's master"

"Nay, spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason, and summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended in her fulness of wealth that might not be amended; but this is the harvest and the garnering season, and the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended."

"No pillager or wrecker had been there; it seemed that time had passed on otherwhere, nor laid a finger on this hidden place rich with the wealth of some forgotten race."

"Not on one strand are all life's jewels strung."

"No pattern should be without some sort of meaning."

"Noble the house was, nor seemed built for war, but rather like the work of other days, when men, in better peace than now they are, had leisure on the world around to gaze, and noted well the past times' changing ways; and fair with sculptured stories it was wrought, by lapse of time unto dim ruin brought."

"Now such an one for daughter Creon had as maketh wise men fools and young men mad."

"Nothing should be made by man's labor which is not worth making or which must be made by labor degrading to the makers."

"O hearken the words of his voice of compassion: "come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions! As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, but surely within you some godhead doth quicken, as ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.""

"Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, I cannot ease the burden of your fears, or make quick-coming death a little thing, or bring again the pleasure of past years, nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, or hope again for aught that I can say, the idle singer of an empty day."

"Of rich men it telleth, and strange is the story how they have, and they hanker, and grip far and wide And they live and they die, and the earth and its glory has been but a burden they scarce might abide."

"O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden, all battle is hushed for this even at least; and no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden to the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased."

"O thrush, your song is passing sweet but never a song that you have sung,is half so sweet as thrushes sang when my dear Love and I were young."

"One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real and why only a hundred thousand Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question."

"One was there who left all his friends behind; who going inland ever more and more, and being left quite alone, at last did find a lonely valley sheltered from the wind, wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, a long-deserted ruined castle stood."

"Ornamental pattern work, to be raised above the contempt of reasonable men, must possess three qualities: beauty, imagination and order."

"Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, think but one thought of me up in the stars."

"Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live take all the gifts that Death and Life may give!"

"Protect, detect, react and deter. For example, firewalls are only of any real use if you master them and take action when you notice something wrong."

"Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings? So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labor, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first — and all this for trifles that no man really needs!"

"Skip dominates most conversations in a negotiation and nobody questions the veracity of what he's saying it's the world according to Skip,"

"So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art at least learn to hate sham art and reject it."

"So on he went, and on the way he thought of all the glorious things of yesterday, nought of the price whereat they must be bought, but ever to himself did softly say "no roaming now, my wars are passed away, no long dull days devoid of happiness, when such a love my yearning heart shall bless.""

"Soon there will be nothing left except the lying dreams of history, the miserable wreckage of our museums and picture-galleries, and the carefully guarded interiors of our aesthetic drawing-rooms, unreal and foolish, fitting witnesses of the life of corruption that goes on there, so pinched and meagre and cowardly, with its concealment and ignoring, rather than restraint of, natural longings; which does not forbid the greedy indulgence in them if it can but be decently hidden."

"So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last forever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die."

"Speak but one word to me over the corn, over the tender, bowed locks of the corn."

"That glad to-morrow may bring certain bliss? Hast thou forgotten how love lives by this…"

"Slayer of the Winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the Summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky."

"The attitude of the judiciary to (young hackers) must change it must be 'that guy can cause havoc to international commerce and wreck a perfectly legitimate business'."

"The dear rain of thy weeping."

"The business of a statesman is to balance the greed and fears of the proprietary class against the necessities of the working class. This is a very sorry business, and leads to all kinds of trickery and evasion ; so that it is more than doubtful whether a statesman can be a moderately honest man."

"The fact of the antagonism of classes underlies all our government and causes political parties, who are continually making exhibitions of themselves to the disgust of all sensible men; making party questions out of matters of universal public convenience, and delaying reforms of the most obvious nature long after the whole country has cried out for them. This is I think a necessary result of government — or, if you please, of political government; and what causes that government is, as I have said, the contest of classes which our competitive system forces on us."

"The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere."

"The heavy trouble, the bewildering care that weighs us down who live and earn our bread, these idle verses have no power to bear; so let em sing of names rememberèd, because they, living not, can ne'er be dead, or long time take their memory quite away from us poor singers of an empty day."

"The hope of the past times was gone, the struggles of mankind for many ages had produced nothing but this sordid, aimless, ugly confusion."

"The largest thing that these young black men and women stood for was to tell young black people that there is no obstacle that you can't overcome. That you can achieve your dreams. That hard work and perseverance and education will pay off, but you'll have to sacrifice to attain that."

"The leading passion of my life has been and is a hatred of modern civilization."

"The secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life, and in elevating them to art."

"The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life."

"The wanderer trembled when he saw all this, because he deemed by magic it was wrought; yet in his heart a longing for some bliss whereof the hard and changing world knows nought, arose and urged him on, and dimmed the thought that there perchance some devil lurked to slay the heedless wanderer from the light of day."

"The wind is not helpless for any man's need, nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed."

"The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope."

"The majesty that from man's soul looks through his eager eyes."

"The memory of some hopeful close embrace, low whispered words within some lonely place?"

"The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make."

"The reward of labor is life. Is that not enough?"