Great Throughts Treasury

"A Litany of Remembrance - In the rising of the sun and in its going down, We remember them. In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, We remember them. In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, We remember them. In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer, We remember them. In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn, We remember them. In the beginning of the year and when it ends, We remember them. When we are weary and in need of strength, We remember them. When we are lost and sick at heart, We remember them. When we have joys we yearn to share, We remember them. So long as we live, they too will live, For they are a part of all who have known them. We remember them." - Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn

"I'm beginning to feel like this. Caught the incredible sunshine just in the nick of time today on my walk. The wall of rain approaching from the west desert was pretty spectacular, too. along with being gorgeous, it was sooo muddy which made driving home in no shoes so very fun :) if only i could post photos here! a picture is worth a thousand words, yes?" - Richard Avedon

"Who can approach Thy seat? For beyond the sphere of Intelligence hast Thou established the throne of Thy glory; There standeth the splendour of Thy veiled habitation, And the mystery and the foundation. Thus far reacheth Intelligence, but cometh here to a standstill, For higher still hast Thou mounted, and ascended Thy mighty throne, "And no man may go up with Thee."" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"16 Rules for Investment Success - Invest — don’t trade or speculate. “The stock market is not a casino, but if you move in and out of stocks every time they move a point or two…the market will be your casino.” Remain flexible and open-minded about types of investment. “There are times to buy blue chip stocks, cyclical stocks, corporate bonds, U.S. Treasury instruments, and so on. And there are times to sit on cash…The fact is there is no one kind of investment that is always best.” Buy low. “It is extremely difficult to go against the crowd — to buy when everyone else is selling or has sold, to buy when things look darkest…[but] chances are if you buy what everyone is buying you will do so only after it is already overpriced.” When buying stocks, search for bargains among quality stocks. “Determining quality in a stock is like reviewing a restaurant. You don’t expect it to be 100% perfect, but before it gets three or four stars you want it to be superior.” Diversify. “In stocks and bonds, as in much else, there is safety in numbers.” Do your homework or hire wise experts to help you. “People will tell you: Investigate before you invest. Listen to them. Study companies to learn what makes them successful.” Don’t panic. “The time to sell is before the crash, not after.” Learn from your mistakes. “The only way to avoid mistakes is not to invest — which is the biggest mistake of all…The big difference between those who are successful and those who are not is that successful people learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others.” An investor who has all the answers doesn’t even understand all the questions. “A cocksure approach to investing will lead, probably sooner than later, to disappointment if not outright disaster. Even if we can identify an unchanging handful of investing principles, we cannot apply these rules to an unchanging universe of investments—or an unchanging economic and political environment. Everything is in a constant state of change, and the wise investor recognizes that success is a process of continually seeking answers to new questions.” Do not be fearful or negative too often. “Even in the dark ’70s, many professional money managers — and many individual investors too — made money in stocks, especially those of smaller companies. There will, of course, be corrections, perhaps even crashes. But, over time, our studies indicate stocks do go up…and up…and up.”" - John Templeton, fully Sir John Marks Templeton

"To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all." - Helen Rowland

"Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about… say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Into my heart's night along a narrow way I groped; and lo! The light, an infinite land of day." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"It is better to leave each day ago fades away, like water flowing, free from sorrow. Yesterday is gone and his story - sung. Today new seeds grow." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Love is cure, Love is power, Love is the magic of changes. Love is the mirror of divine beauty." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Love so needs to love that it will endure almost anything, even abuse, just to flicker for a moment. But the sky's mouth is kind. Its song will never hurt you, for I sing those words." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"The Beloved - One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked: 'Who is there?' He answered: 'It is I.' The voice said: 'There is no room here for me and thee.' The door was shut. After a year of solitude and deprivation this man returned to the door of the Beloved. He knocked. A voice from within asked: 'Who is there?' The man said: 'It is Thou.' The door was opened for him." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did." - Bette Davis, Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis

"The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell" - Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

"Let us, therefore, have charity and humility and give alms because it washes the stains of our sins from our clothes. For people lose everything they leave behind in this world; but they carry with them the rewards of charity and the alms which they gave, for which they will have a reward and a just retribution from the Lord." - Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL

"Mercy and justice (just judgment) in one soul is like a man who worships God and the idols in one house. Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is the equality of the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves; and when it makes recompense, it does not incline to one side or show respect of persons. Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness, and it compassionately inclines a man in the direction of all; it[, mercy,] does not requite [or give equal retribution, an eye for an eye, to] a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"When a man comes to know that he can fall away from God as a dry leaf falls from a tree, then he knows the power of his soul." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"Who does not love a humble and meek man? Only proud men and slanderers, who are foreign to his work." - Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

"Let the mouth also fast from disgraceful speeches and railings. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and fowl and yet bite and devour our brothers and sisters? The evil speaker eats the flesh of his brother and bites the body of his neighbor." - John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

"A song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice." - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

"Action should be something added to the life of prayer, not something taken away from it. [Paraphrase]" - Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

"Far from being a bad thing to seek advice, you must, on the contrary, do so when the matter is of any importance, or when we cannot come to a clear decision on our own." - Saint Vincent de Paul

"The creation of all things by the Creator, that is, the emanation of form from the ?rst source, which is to say, the will, and its over?owing across matter resembles the upwelling of water ?owing from a fountain and descending . . . except that this ?ow is unceasing and entirely outside of motion and time . . . And the imprinting of form in matter, when it reaches it from the will, is like the return of the form of one who is gazing into a mirror." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"War, I have always said, forces men to change their standards, regardless of whether their country has won or lost." - Salvatore Quasimodo

"Chronological time is what we measure by clocks and calendars; it is always linear, orderly, quantifiable, and mechanical. Kairotic time is organic, rhythmic, bodily, leisurely, and aperiodic; it is the inner cadence that brings fruit to ripeness, a woman to childbirth, a man to change the direction of his life." - Sam Keen

"Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness." - Samuel Butler

"He, indeed, is the great Purusha, the Lord of creation, preservation and destruction, who inspires the mind to attain the state of stainlessness. He is the Ruler and the Light that is imperishable." - Shvetashvatara Upanishad

"He, the non-dual Brahman, who rules over every position; who controls all forms and all sources; who, in the beginning, filled with knowledge the omniscient Hiranyagarbha, His own creation, whom He beheld when He (Hiranyagarbha) was produced-He is other than both knowledge and ignorance." - Shvetashvatara Upanishad

"Serve the eternal Brahman with the blessings of the Sun, the cause of the universe. Be absorbed, through samadhi, in the eternal Brahman. Thus your work will not bind you." - Shvetashvatara Upanishad

"Since it is the Other within us who is old, it is natural that the revelation of our age should come to us from outside --from others. We do not accept it willingly." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

"You cannot expect that a friend should be like the atmosphere, which confers all manner of benefits upon you, and without which indeed it would be impossible to live, but at the same time is never in your way." - Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps

"Since, then, what has been ascertained commends itself, it is agreeable to investigate whether this Nature and all that is something exist only from this Nature, even as they exist only through this Nature. Clearly, we can say that what exists from a thing exists also through it and that what exists through a thing exists also from it. For example, what exists from a material and through a craftsman can also be said to exist through a material and from a craftsman. For through both and from both (i.e., by both) it has its existence, even though it exists through a material and from a material in a way other than [the way it exists] through a craftsman and from a craftsman. As a logical consequence, then: just as through the Supreme Nature all existing things are what they are (and, thus, this Nature exists through itself, whereas [all] other things exist through something other [than themselves]), so all existing things exist from the Supreme Nature (and, thus, this Nature exists from itself, whereas [all] other things exist from something other [than themselves])." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

"A proud monk needs no demon. He has turned into one, an enemy to himself." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites

"The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites

"It is no ready-made article; it has grown through the centuries as native to our country and people as the oak, ash, or thorn. It has given her people freedom and taught them the difference between freedom and license. That is the Constitution that is threatened to-day, not quite openly yet, by the Socialist Party in their conference, tendenciously by sketching a course of action which if it takes place means the destruction of the Constitution. You may dispute that as much as you like, but in effect taking away the executive power of the House of Commons is the way every tyranny starts. It is proletarian Hitlerism and nothing else, and it can be nothing else. I want you to realize it in time." - Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

"The bomber will always get through. The only defense is in offense, which means that you have to kill more women and children more quickly that the enemy if you want to save yourselves." - Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

"Monfleury is on sale, I lose fifty thousand francs, if necessary, but I'm happy, I leave this hell of hypocrisy and harassment. I seek solitude and peace at only country where they exist in France, a fourth floor overlooking the Champs-Élysées." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"Never had he found himself so close to those terrible weapons of feminine artillery." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"War was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon's proclamations." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

"We live in a capitalist economy, and I have no particular objection to honorable self-interest. We cannot hope to make the needed, drastic improvement in primary and secondary education without a dramatic restructuring of salaries. In my opinion, you cannot pay a good teacher enough money to recompense the value of talent applied to the education of young children. I teach an hour or two a day to tolerably well-behaved near-adults—and I come home exhausted. By what possible argument are my services worth more in salary than those of a secondary-school teacher with six classes a day, little prestige, less support, massive problems of discipline, and a fundamental role in shaping minds. (In comparison, I only tinker with intellects already largely formed.)" - Stephan Jay Gould

"In reading, a lonely quiet concert is given to our minds; all our mental faculties will be present in this symphonic exaltation." - Stephane Mallarme, born Étienne Mallarmé

"If self-denial be the greatest part of godliness, the great letter in the alphabet of religion, self-love is the great letter in the alphabet of practical atheism. Self is the great antichrist and anti-God in the world, that sets up itself above all that is called God; self-love is the captain of that black band: it sits in the temple of God, and would be adored as God. Self-love begins; but denying the power of godliness, which is the same with denying the ruling power of God, ends the list." - Stephen Charnock

"Man’s nature, being contrary to holiness, hath an aversion to any act of homage to God, because holiness must at least be pretended. In every duty wherein we have a communion with God, holiness is requisite: now, as men are against the truth of holiness, because it is unsuitable to them, so they are not friends to those duties which require it and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts. The word of the Lord is a yoke, prayer a drudgery, obedience a strange element. We are like fish that “drink up iniquity like water,” and come not to the bank without the force of an angle; no more willing to do service for God, than a fish is of itself to do service for man." - Stephen Charnock

"There is no succession in the knowledge of God. The variety of successions and changes in the world make not succession, or new objects, in the Divine mind; for all things are present to him from eternity in regard of his knowledge, though they are not actually present in the world in regard of their existence. He doth not know one thing now, and another anon; he sees all things at once; “Known unto God are all things from the beginning of the world”; but in their true order of succession, as they lie in the eternal council of God, to be brought forth in time. Though there be a succession and order of things as they are wrought, there is yet no succession in God in regard of his knowledge of them." - Stephen Charnock

"This boundless desire had not its original from man itself; nothing would render itself restless; something above the bounds of this world implanted those desires after a higher good, and made him restless in everything else. And since the soul can only rest in that which is infinite, there is something infinite for it to rest in; since nothing in the world, though a man had the whole, can give it satisfaction, there is something above the world only capable to do it, otherwise the soul would be always without it, and be more in vain than any other creature. There is, therefore, some infinite being that can only give a contentment to the soul, and this is God." - Stephen Charnock

"To pretend to homage to God, and intend only the advantage of self, is rather to mock Him than worship Him." - Stephen Charnock

"As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth. As citizens of the world, we have a duty to alert the public to the unnecessary risks that we live with every day, and to the perils we foresee if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change... There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse. That would have catastrophic effects. Although the threat is not as dire as that of nuclear weapons right now, in the long term we are looking at a serious threat." - Stephen Hawking

"Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, which is called a geodesic. A geodesic is the shortest (or longest) path between two nearby points." - Stephen Hawking

"So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist." - Stephen Hawking

"The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty." - Stephen Hawking

"When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect." - Stephen Hawking