Great Throughts Treasury

"Some souls are ennobled and elevated by seeming misfortunes, which then become blessings in disguise." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"Though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity." - Edward Everett

"Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little - diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God’s mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness." - Robert Hall

"One’s pleasure is enhanced by the duty of saying blessings over everything he enjoys or that happens to him." - Kuzari or The Kitab al Khazari written by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi NULL

"Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment. The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts... Only when a person has peace of mind can he really feel love for humanity. Lack of peace of mind leads to animosity towards others. Peace of mind leads to love." - Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

"Everything was possessed of personality, only different from us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that was to feel beauty... Observation was certain to have its rewards. Interest, wonder, admiration grew, and the fact was appreciated that life was more than mere human manifestation; it was expressed in a multitude of forms. This appreciation enriched Lakota existence. Life was vivid and pulsating; nothing was casual and commonplace. The Indian lived - lived in every sense of the word - from his first to his last breath." - Chief Luther Standing Bear

"Are afflictions aught but mercies in disguise? th' alternate cup. Medicinal though bitter, and prepar'd by love's own hand for salutary ends." - David Mallet, also David Malloch

"Men understand the worth of blessings only when they have lost them." - Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

"If you want to live more you must master the art of appreciating the little, everyday blessings in life. This is not altogether a golden world, but there are countless gleams of gold to be discovered in it if we give our minds to them." - Henry Alford Porter

"To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me." - William Makepeace Thackeray

"To be happy: Live one day at a time. Take advantage of what you already have. Have a sense of humor. Set some priorities. Make a change and stick to it. Forgive and forget. Count your blessings." -

"The pleasure we feel with what we have does not come only from the thing itself, but also from whom we received it. That is the lessons of the blessings we make. They help us appreciate that the Almighty is the One who has bestowed us with the pleasures of this world - this awareness greatly enhances the value of these pleasures." -

"Life is a journey, not a home; a road, not a city of habitation; and the enjoyments and blessings we have are but little inns on the roadside of life, where we may be refreshed for a moment, that we may with new strength press on to the end - to the rest that remaineth for the people of God." - Horatius Bonar

"O Youth: Do you know that yours is not the first generation to yearn for a life of beauty and freedom? Do you know that all your ancestors felt as you do - and fell victim to trouble and hatred? Do you know, also, that your fervent wishes can only find fulfillment if you succeed in attaining love and understanding of men, and animals, and plants, and stars, so that every joy becomes your joy and every pain your pain? Open your eyes, your heart, your hands, and avoid the poison your forebears so greedily sucked in from History. Then will all the earth be your fatherland, and all your work and effort spread forth blessings." - Albert Einstein

"Chain reaction is popularly associated with the atomic bomb, but it is no less gigantic a force in your daily life. Every word you speak, every action you perform sets up a chain of reaction that can end in a damaging explosion or a shower of blessings." - Harold S. Kahm

"The difficulties, hardships, and trials of life, the obstacles one encounters on the road to fortune, are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. Peril is the element in which power is developed." - William Matthews

"Let us never endure the loss of the greatest of all human blessings, liberty, the beginning and fountain of all happiness!" - Moses Mendelssohn

"Luxury is... absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in despotic states. In the former, it is the use of liberty; in the latter, it is the abuse of servitude. A slave appointed by his master to tyrannize over other wretches of the same condition, uncertain of enjoying tomorrow the blessings of today, has no other felicity that that of glutting the pride, the passions, and the voluptuousness of the present moment." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

"I condemn Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible charge any prosecutor has ever uttered. to me it is the extremist thinkable form of corruption, it has had the will to the ultimate corruption conceivably possible. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity, it has made of every value a disvalue, of every truth a lie, of every kind of integrity a vileness of soul. People still dare to talk to me of its ‘humanitarian’ blessings! To abolish any state of distress whatever has been profoundly inexpedient to it: it has lived on states of distress, it has created states of distress in order to externalize itself." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Old age brings us to know the value of the blessings which we have enjoyed, and it brings us also to a very thankful perception of those which yet remain. Is a man advanced in life? The ease of a single day, the rest of a single night, are gifts which may be subjects of gratitude to God." - William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa

"We live in the midst of blessings, till we are utterly insensible to their greatness, and of the source from which they flow." - James Allan Park

"Kind words are benedictions. They are not only instruments of power, but of benevolence and courtesy; blessings both to the speaker and hearer of them." - Frederic Saunders

"Ultimately, our purpose is to be so alive, compassionate and creative in our own lives that the whole universe quivers with excitement and enthusiasm and brings forth a new spirit, a new possibility, in our midst. Our purpose is to be both the womb and the midwife for the birthing into our world of a holy spirit filled with new potentials for life and creativity. We exist in order to quicken the creativity and spirit of our world so that new worlds, new wonders, new blessings may emerge... To truly appreciate the meaning of life, we must be prepared to let the meanings we have known stand in the presence of new insights and be transformed. We have no final answers, only the questions that lead to further discoveries, creativity and emergence. We are here that life may discover, know and express itself more abundantly for the blessing and fulfillment of all creation - past, present and potential." - David Spangler

"Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils bear patiently and sweetly; for only this day is ours; we are dead to yesterday, and not born to-morrow." - Jeremy Taylor

"Blessings be with them, and eternal praise who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares, the poets, who on earth have made us heirs of truth and pure delight, by heavenly lays." - William Wordsworth

"Authentic success is knowing how simply abundant your life is exactly as it is today. Authentic success is being so grateful for the many blessings bestowed on you. Authentic success is living each day with a heart overflowing." - Seán Bán Breathnach, aka SBB

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

"Getting used to our blessings I one of the most important non-evil generators of human evil, tragedy and suffering" -

"There are two blessings which most people misuse – health and leisure." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

"Gratefulness arises naturally from this fertile balance of honoring both our sorrow and our joy. We name our sorrows so that we can bring care and attention to our wounds, so that we may heal. And at the same time we give thanks for the innumerable gifts and blessings bestowed upon us daily, lest we forget how rich we are." - Wayne Muller

"Our life is not a problem to be solved, it is a gift to be opened… If we are preoccupied with what is missing and what is broken and wrong, we lose the miraculous harvest of all these tiny gifts, piled on upon the other, that accumulate without our acknowledging them. If we listen more carefully for the infinite blessings of a single day, this will not discount or obliterate our sorrows. But it will help us remember how strong and rich we can be, even in the midst of suffering." - Wayne Muller

"Religion can be the greatest blessings or the greatest of curses. Historically it seems to have been both." - David Lokhelevich Rosenberg

"Wealth and honor, benefits and blessings shall enrich my life; poverty and failures, grief and anxiety shall help fulfill it. In my life, I will serve heaven and earth; in death I will find peace." - Zhang Zai, also Chang Tsai

"A jealous person is doubly unhappy - over what he has, which is judged inferior, and over what he has not, which is judged superior. Such a person is doubly removed from knowing the true blessings of creation." - Desmond Tutu, fully Desmond Mpilo Tutu

"The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice, and securing the blessings of liberty." -

"Reflect upon you present blessings, of which every man has many -- not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." - Charles Dickens

"Gratitude is the intention to count-your-blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding, whenever possible, the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances." - Timothy Miller, fully Timothy S. Miller

"The desire for imaginary benefits often involves the loss of present blessings." - Aesop NULL

"The desire for imaginary benefits often involves the loss of present blessings." -

"The desire for imaginary benefits often involves the loss of present blessings." -

"A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessings of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind." - Anacharsis NULL

"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of blessings... Money breeds money, money rules the world." - Carl Sandburg

"Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil, the sum of all blessings." - Carl Sandburg

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many: not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some." - Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens

"There is a difference between the two temporal blessings - health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all his money for health." - Charles Caleb Colton

"We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth as "wild." Only to the white man was nature a "wilderness" and only to him was the land "infested" with "wild" animals and "savage" people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery. Not until the hairy man from the east came and with brutal frenzy heaped injustices upon us and the families we loved was it "wild" for us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was that for us the "Wild West" began." -

"Looking back, we see with great clarity, and what once appeared as difficulties now reveal themselves as blessings." - Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

"Generosity has never impoverished the giver; it has enriched the lives of those who have practiced it... And the bread we have cast upon the waters has been returned in blessings a hundredfold." - Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

"Only they who bear its burdens may rightfully enjoy the blessings of civilized society." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

"Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die." - Hannah More