Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Privilege

"It is integrity that invests man with immortality, and bestows upon him the privilege of direct communion with God." - Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, also known as Rabbeinu Behaye

"In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning." - Rollo C. Hester

"Every generation has the privilege of standing on the shoulders of the generation that went before; but it has no right to pick the pockets of the first-comer." -

"Reverie is the groundwork of creative imagination; it is the privilege of the artist that with him is not as with other men an escape from reality, but the means by which he accedes to it." -

"True liberty consists in the privilege of enjoying our own rights, not in the destruction of the rights of others." -

"You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it's a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it." - Albert Schweitzer

"Effeminacy is not a feminine possession any more than a masculine one. Men or women become effeminate when privilege and lack of responsibility have made them weak. The true female creature, unspoiled, is tough, persistent, and strong." - Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

"Free inquiry, if restrained within due bounds, and applied to proper subjects, is a most important privilege of the human mind; and if well conducted, is one of the greatest friends to truth. But when reason knows neither its office nor its limits, and when employed on subjects foreign to its jurisdiction, it then becomes a privilege dangerous to be exercised." - Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné

"It was the scientists who first made true democracy possible, for not only did they lighten our daily tasks but they made the finest works of art and thought, whose enjoyment was until recently the privilege of the favored classes, accessible to all." - Albert Einstein

"Truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would repay further study, truth isn’t the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctions; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true." - Michel Foucault

"It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

"It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy without physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art." -

"It is not enough for parents to understand children. they must accord children the privilege of understanding them." - Milton R. Sapirstein

"As all before me, I have questioned, grateful for the privilege of being able to ask: What is my task? Why do we exist? All answers produce the pain of recognition, emptiness and joy." - Patti Smith, fully Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith

"By exposing them continually to an adult world, which is basically materialistic, we have robbed children of the privilege of childhood. They have been told over and over again that things bring happiness and that happiness is the chief goal in life. We have sold our youth a big lie... Expose hedonism for what it is - a big lie, a mirage that always fades." -

"Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long cherished or a privilege he has long possessed that he is set free — he has set himself free — for higher dreams, for greater privileges. " - James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin

"It is a rare privilege to be born as a human being, as we happen to be. If we do not achieve enlightenment in this life, when do we expect to achieve it?" - George Echu

"Segregation in the church violates something that is basic in the nature of the church. How can a church exclude from “the church of God” those who are children of God? How can it, as “the body of Christ,” withhold the privilege of worship from those who have been brought into union with Christ." - T. B. Maston, fully Thomas Buford Maston

"This is the essence of humanism: we have the privilege and responsibility to consider deep questions and to courageously bear the answers and the difficulty in finding solid answers. In doing so, one can aspire to one’s chosen values, and hopefully find fulfillment in the process." - Jason A. Merchey

"What is fullness of joy but peace? Joy is tumultuous only when it is not full; but peace is the privilege of those who are “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”" -

"We have not so much the privilege of intelligence, viewed as something above and against nonhuman nature, but the responsibility and necessity to convert our intelligence to the earth. We need to learn how to use intelligence to mend the distortions we have created and how to convert intelligence into an instrument that can cultivate the harmonies and balances of the ecological community and bring these to a refinement." - Rosemary Radford Ruether

"We will never comprehend why the infinite will, in order to realize its completion, requires the incomplete, or how evil can result in good. No forced attempt to reason out these events can give us peace of God. There is a different way, a way born from inward experience. We may not have been given the privilege of understanding how events are expressing the will of God. But one thing we do know, and on that knowledge all else depends – the will of God is directed only toward one thing: the spiritual." - Albert Schweitzer

"The longer I live the more I am convinced that the one thing worth living for and dying for is the privilege of making someone more happy and more useful. No person who ever does anything to lift their fellows ever makes a sacrifice." -

"[Plato's ideal society] guarantees to all people the right to an education that diagnoses and perfects their unique talents, plus a work role that conveys a sense of self-esteem, saving them from the neuroses of megalomania and the lust for power. It forbids privilege and sexism and all other criteria irrelevant to merit. It eliminates conflict of interest from those who hold office and gives the masses a potent checklist they can use to hold their rulers to account. Best of all, it eliminates all traces of "might makes right" and serves as a pattern laid up in heaven to rank actual societies in terms of what corrupts them. Society becomes more corrupt as the struggle for power becomes more brutal." - James R. Flynn, aka Jim Flynn

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." -

"It seems to me that the one privilege of friendship is "to quench the fiery darts of the wicked," to make the best of friends, to encourage and believe in them, to hand on the pleasant things." -

"It seems to me that the one privilege of friendship is "to quench the fiery darts of the wicked," to make the best of friends, to encourage and believe in them, to hand on the pleasant things." - A.C. Benson, fully Arthur Christopher “A.C.” Benson

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth- even more than death. Thought is subversive, and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; though its merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless to the well-trained wisdom of ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world and the chief glory of man. But if thought is to become the possession of the many, and not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds man back - fear that their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear least they themselves prove less worthy to the respect they have supposed themselves to be." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"Reply with wit to gravity, and with gravity to wit. Make a full concession to your adversary; give him every credit for the arguments you know you can answer, and slur over those you feel you cannot. But above all, if he has the privilege of making his reply, take special care that the strongest thing you have to urge be the last." - Charles Caleb Colton

"The greatest and the most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least, the privilege of making others happy." - Charles Caleb Colton

"Don't laugh at a child's ambitions. There is no sting so sharp as ridicule, and a laugh is often ridicule to a child. What a parent should do when he knows his child is overreaching, is to talk it over with him from every angle, and, if possible, find an angle from which the job can be attacked with hope of success. Then urge him forward, give him every encouragement. Above all, don't help your child to do something that he can accomplish on his own. Don't deny him the priceless privilege and thrill of developing his own success." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired." - David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

"I am convinced that my life belongs to the whole community; and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw

"This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a true force of Nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, an, as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can." - George Bernard Shaw

"The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration." - Hosea Ballou

"Democracy is not just a counting up of votes – it is a counting up of actions. Without those on the bottom acting out there desires for justice – as the government acts out its needs, and those with power and privilege act out theirs – the scales of democracy will be off. That is why civil disobedience is not just to be tolerated – if we are to have a truly democratic society it is a necessity." - Howard Zinn

"You are an individual and ever will be. This Spirit works through centers and you are a center. It is your privilege to let this Spirit take control of your own being, and so interweave your life with Its own, that you will no longer count yourself and It as being two." - Jacob L. Beilhart

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage... In economics, the majority is always wrong." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

"Without doubt, the highest privilege of wealth is the opportunity it affords for doing good, without giving up one’s fortune." - Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

"Do not confuse your vested interests with ethics. Do not identify the enemies of your privilege with enemies of humanity." - Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner

"It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Science offers the best answers to the meaning of life. Science offers you the privilege before you die of understanding why you were ever born in the first place." - Richard Dawkins

"Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. (also attributed to Marian Wright Edelman)" - Shirley Chisholm

"The revolutionists did not succeed in establishing human freedom; they poured the new wine of belief in equal rights for all men into the old bottle of privilege for some; and it soured." - Suzanne LaFollette, fully Suzanne Clara La Follette

"It is the faith that is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate borders." - Vannevar Bush

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man; it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail." - William Faulkner, fully William Cuthbert Faulkner

"The longer I live the more I am convinced that the one thing worth living for and dying for is the privilege of making someone more happy and more useful. No person who ever does anything to lift their fellows ever makes a sacrifice." - Booker T. Washington, fully Booker Taliaferro Washington

"Reproductive freedom is critical to a whole range of issues. If we can't take charge of this most personal aspect of our lives, we can't take care of anything. It should not be seen as a privilege or as a benefit, but a fundamental human right." - Faye Wattleton

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche