Great Throughts Treasury

"When he is brought to nothing, the highest degree of humility, the spiritual union between his soul and God will be effected. The journey does not consist on recreations, experiences and spiritual feelings, but in the living, sensory and spiritual, exterior and interior death of the cross." - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL

"Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfilment of all times and ages, and of all that exists in either. This encompassing and fulfilment is the union, in the person granted salvation, of his real authentic origin with his real authentic consummation. This union presupposes a transcending of all that by nature is essentially limited by an origin and a consummation. Such transcendence is effected by the almighty and more than powerful energy of God, acting in a direct and infinite manner in the person found worthy of this transcendence. The action of this divine energy bestows a more than ineffable pleasure and joy on him in whom the unutterable and unfathomable union with the divine is accomplished. This, in the nature of things, cannot be perceived, conceived or expressed." - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL

"To argue over who is the more noble is nothing more than to dispute whether dirt is better for making bricks or for making mortar." - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"I know well, Monsieur, how much you have to endure in your present duty, and I ask Our Lord to strengthen you in your difficulties. It is in such circumstances that we acquire virtue; where there is no suffering, there is little merit. My wish is that God may grant us great indifference with regard to duties. O Monsieur, how sure we would then be of doing His Holy Will, which is our sole aspiration, and how much peace and contentment we would enjoy, or so it seems to me!" - Saint Vincent de Paul

"Before you act consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"The fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"When designs are form'd to raze the very foundation of a free government, whose few who are to erect their grandeur and fortunes upon the general ruin, will employ every art to sooth the devoted people into a state of indolence, inattention and security, which is forever the fore-runner of slavery." - Samuel Adams

"Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"He by whom the whole universe is constantly pervaded is the Knower, the Author of time. He is sinless and omniscient, It is at His command that the work which is called earth, water, fire, air and akasa appears as the universe. All this should be reflected upon by the wise." - Shvetashvatara Upanishad

"True freedom is freedom of the mind. Only a person whose mind is free from worrying can be considered truly free." - Simcha Zissel of Kelm, fully Rabbi imcha Zissel Ziv Broida, aka the Elder of Kelm

"When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer." - Cyprian, aka Saint Cyprian of Carthage, fully Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus NULL

"I shall pray to God for you, and will have many others pray for you and your needs." - Jean Baptiste Lacordaire, fully Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

"Live by the spirit of faith." - Jean Baptiste Lacordaire, fully Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

"A person is at the beginning of a prayer when he succeeds in removing distractions which at the beginning beset him. He is at the middle of the prayer when the mind concentrates only on what he is meditating and contemplating. He reaches the end when, with the Lord, the prayer enraptures him." - John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites

"When God hath sent a sharp disease, as a messenger to bind men to their beds and make an interruption of their sinful pleasures, their mouths are full of promises of a new life, in hope to escape the just vengeance of God: the sense of hell, which strikes strongly upon them, makes them full of such pretended resolutions when they howl upon their beds. But if God be pleased in his patience to give them a respite, to take off the chains wherewith he seemed to be binding them for destruction, and recruit their strength, they are more earnest in their sins than they were in their promises of a reformation, as if they had got the mastery of God, and had outwitted him." - Stephen Charnock

"When we believe that we ought to be satisfied, rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves, imagine that He should submit His own honor to our advantage; we make ourselves more glorious than God, as though we were not made for Him, but He made for us; this is to have a very low esteem of the majesty of God." - Stephen Charnock

"As a child walking over a slippery and dangerous path cries out, "Father, I am falling!" and has but a moment to catch his father's hand, so every believer sees hours when only the hand of Jesus comes between him and the abysses of destruction." - Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

"Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable." - Thomas Carlyle

"I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it." - Thomas Jefferson

"Justice indeed, on our part, will save us from those wars which would have been produced by a contrary disposition. But how can we prevent those produced by the wrongs of other nations? By putting ourselves in a condition to punish them. Weakness provokes insult and injury, while a condition to punish, often prevents them." - Thomas Jefferson

"May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion." - Thomas Jefferson

"Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak." - Thomas Jefferson

"My most earnest wish is to see the republican element of popular control pushed to the maximum of its practicable exercise. I shall then believe that our Government may be pure and perpetual." - Thomas Jefferson

"The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information." - Thomas Jefferson

"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then you are not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward and the spirit of a sycophant." - Thomas Paine

"Though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire." - Thomas Paine

"To a Lady Before Marriage - Oh! form'd by Nature, and refin'd by Art, With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart! By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free Thy croud of captives and descend to me? Content in shades obscure to waste thy life, A hidden beauty and a country wife. O! listen while thy summers are my theme, Ah! sooth thy partner in his waking dream! In some small hamlet on the lonely plain, Where Thames, through meadows, rolls his mazy train; Or where high Windsor, thick with greens array'd, Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade, Fancy has figur'd out our calm retreat; Already round the visionary seat Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring, The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing. Where dost thou lie, thou thinly-peopled green? Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen? Where sons, contented with their native ground, Ne'er travell'd further than ten furlongs round; And the tann'd peasant, and his ruddy bride, Were born together, and together died. Where early larks best tell the morning light, And only Philomel disturbs the night, 'Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise, With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dies; All savage where th' embroider'd gardens end, The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend; And oh! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve, A rill shall warble cross the gloomy grove, A little rill, o'er pebbly beds convey'd, Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade. What chearing scents those bordering banks exhale! How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale! That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high, He drowns each feather'd minstrel of the sky. Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn, The deep-mouth'd beagle, and the sprightly horn; Or lure the trout with well dissembled flies, Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies. Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine, The downy peach, or flavour'd nectarine; Or rob the bee-hive of its golden hoard, And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board. Sometimes my books by day shall kill the hours, While from thy needle rise the silken flowers, And thou, by turns, to ease my feeble sight, Resume the volume, and deceive the night. Oh! when I mark thy twinkling eyes opprest, Soft whispering, let me warn my love to rest; Then watch thee, charm'd, while sleep locks every sense, And to sweet Heaven commend thy innocence. Thus reign'd our fathers o'er the rural fold, Wise, hale, and honest in the days of old; Till courts arose, where substance pays for show, And specious joys are bought with real woe. See Flavia's pendants, large, well-spread, and right, The ear that wears them hears a fool each night: Mark how the embroider'd colonel sneaks away, To shun the withering dame that made him gay; That knave, to gain a title, lost his fame; That rais'd his credit by a daughter's shame; This coxcomb's ribband cost him half his land, And oaks, unnumber'd, bought that fool a wand. Fond man, as all his sorrows were too few, Acquires strange wants that nature never knew, By midnight lamps he emulates the day, And sleeps, perverse, the chearful suns away; From goblets high-embost, his wine must glide, Found his clos'd sight the gorgeous curtain slide; Fruits ere their time to grace his pomp must rise, And three untasted courses glut his eyes. For this are nature's gentle calls withstood, The voice of conscience, and the bonds of blood; This wisdom thy reward for every pain, And this gay glory all thy mighty gain. Fair phantoms woo'd and scorn'd from age to age, Since bards began to laugh, and priests to rage. And yet, just curse on man's aspiring kind, Prone to ambition, to example blind, Our children's children shall our steps pursue, And the same errours be for ever new. Mean while in hope a guiltless country swain, My reed with warblings chears the imagin'd plain. Hail humble shades, where truth and silence dwell! The noisy town and faithless court farewell! Farewell ambition, once my darling flame! The thirst of lucre, and the charm of fame! In life's by-road, that winds through paths unknown, My days, though number'd, shall be all my own. Here shall they end, (O! might they twice begin) And all be white the Fates intend to spin. " - Thomas Tickell

"Whether by justice, or by fraud oblique,the earthly race of men, a loftier wall ascends, my mind is dubious." - Maximus of Tyre, fully Cassius Maximus Tyrius NULL

"Hearses coffins, long funeral processions, and all the dark emblems of mortality, were reflected, as it were, on the sky, from the terrible works of pestilence and famine which were going on the earth beneath it." - William Carleton

"For 'tis some virtue, virtue to commend." - William Congreve

"God never meant that man should scale the heavens by strides of human wisdom. In his works, though wondrous, he commands us in his word to seek him rather where his mercy shines." - William Cowper

"The man to solitude accustom'd long, perceives in everything that lives a tongue; not animals alone, but shrubs and trees have speech for him, and understood with ease, after long drought when rains abundant fall, he hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all." - William Cowper

"Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons to love it, too." - William Cowper

"I say there are no principles but those of the mind, and nothing exists apart from the mind." - Wang Yang-Ming or Yangming, aka Wang Shouren or Wang Shou-jen, courtesy name Bo'an

"Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"Youth, youth- something savage- something pedantic. For example there is Mr. Masefield, there is Mr. Bennett. Stuff them into the flame of Marlowe and burn them to cinders. Let not a shred remain. Don't palter with the second rate. Detest your own age. Build a better one." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Violence must be put down! against cruelty make a stand, ye who would make sure of the reward of Good Thought through Right, to whose company the holy man belongs. His dwelling place shall be in thy House, O Ahura." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL

"One who follows the path of virtuosity need not be worried about wealth as it comes to him naturally without making efforts." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

"All that progressives ask or desire is permission — in an era when "development," "evolution," is the scientific word — to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"Charm ache with air, and agony with words. Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1." - William Shakespeare

"Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps." - William McKinley

"A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin

"Jealousy, lust, and honor remove a man from the world." - Eleazar ha-Kappar, alternate spelling Eliezer ha-Kappar

"I poured out the torrent of my long-standing discontent and I challenged them to do and dare anything." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"There are few situations in life that cannot be honorably settled, and without loss of time, either by suicide, a bag of gold, or by thrusting a despised antagonist over the edge of a precipice upon a dark night." - Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith

"Young people, the most beautiful jewels in wealth is also the most beautiful in the case of want and woe!" - Euripedes NULL

"And so this great nation has come into being under the inspiration of the Almighty to accomplish his purposes. Through modern revelation we have had made very plain to us something of the mission of America and the establishment of our national Constitution." - Ezra Taft Benson

"In the providence of God, governments were intended to be the servants, not the masters of the people. This eternal truth needs to be emphasized and re-emphasized." - Ezra Taft Benson