Great Throughts Treasury

"Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Men say we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes and plait the crown of thorns." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be God in you." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life." - Emile Zola

"It's scary! Single - person means so much and so many different things!" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads and revealed their faces, animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel, and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine -- If he love with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him -- Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse -- It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not?" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society." - Emma Goldman

"It seemed rather incongruous that in a society of super-sophisticated communication, we often suffer from a shortage of listeners." - Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

"We see that man entirely resembles the higher mammals, and most of all the apes, in embryonic development as well as in anatomic structure. And if we seek to understand this ontogenetic agreement in the light of the biogenetic law, we find that it proves clearly and necessarily the descent of man from a series of other mammals, and proximately from the primates." - Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

"Who grows up without fear will live without honor." - Estonian Proverbs

"But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing." - Eugene Peterson

"Devotions are the discipline of being quiet and listening for what we donÂ’t hear in the streets, in the media, in the workplace." - Eugene Peterson

"I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business." - Eugene Peterson

"Perseverance does not mean “perfection.” It means we do not quit when we find that we are not yet mature and there is a long journey still before us." - Eugene Peterson

"You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise." - Eugene Peterson

"In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"Have you ever noticed that Jesus is never recorded as taking a holiday? He retired for the purposes of his mission, not from it. He was never destroyed by his work; he was always on top of it. He moved among people as the master of every situation. He was busier than anyone; the multitudes were always at him, yet he had time, for everything and everyone. He was never hurried, or harassed, or too busy. He had complete supremacy over time; he never let it dictate to him. He talked of my time; my hour. He knew exactly when the moment had come for doing something and when it had not." - Evelyn Underhill

"Many people seem to think that the spiritual life necessarily requires a definite and exacting plan of study. It does not. But it does require a definite plan of life; and courage in sticking to the plan, not for merely days or weeks, but for years." - Evelyn Underhill

"This, of course, is what religion is about: this adherence to God, this confident dependence on that which is unchanging. This is the more abundant life which, in its own particular language and own particular way, it calls us to live. Because it is our part in the one life in the whole universe of spirits, our share in the great drive towards Reality, the tendency of all life to seek God Who made it for Himself and now incites and guides it, we are already adapted to it. Just as a fish is adapted to life in the sea. This view of our situation fills us with a certain awed and humble gladness. It delivers us from all niggling fuss about ourselves, prevents us from feeling self-important about our own little spiritual adventures; and yet makes them worthwhile as part of one great spiritual adventure." - Evelyn Underhill

"Downstairs Peter Beste-Chetwynde mixed himself another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis, which, next to The Wind in the Willows, was his favourite book." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole." - Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

"As we cleanse the inner vessel, there will have to be changes made in our own personal lives, in our families, and in the Church. The proud do not change to improve, but defend their position by rationalizing. Repentance means change, and it takes a humble person to change. But we can do it." - Ezra Taft Benson

"Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any earthly possession. As a United States citizen I believe it is guaranteed in our heaven-inspired Constitution." - Ezra Taft Benson

"God help us to be grateful for our blessings, never to be guilty of the sin of ingratitude, and to instill this same gratitude into the lives of our children. Someone has said that an ungrateful man is like a hog under a tree eating apples and never looking up to see where they come from." - Ezra Taft Benson

"Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."" - Ezra Taft Benson

"I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society. It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before. Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world." - Ezra Taft Benson

"More than ever before, we need to learn and apply the principles of economic self-reliance. We do not know when the crisis involving sickness or unemployment may affect our own circumstances. We do know that the Lord has decreed global calamities for the future and has warned and forewarned us to be prepared. For this reason the Brethren have repeatedly stressed a 'back to basics' program for temporal and spiritual welfare." - Ezra Taft Benson

"On what basis can we morally resist tyranny? I say to you with all the fervor of my soul that God intended men to be free. Rebellion against tyranny is a righteous cause. It is an enormous evil for any man to be enslaved to any system contrary to his own will. For that reason men, 200 years ago, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freedom is lost, only blood – human blood – will win it back." - Ezra Taft Benson

"With all my heart I love our great nation. I have lived and traveled abroad just enough to make me appreciate rather fully what we have in America. To me the U. S. is not just another nation. It is not just one of a family of nations. The U. S. is a nation with a great mission to perform for the benefit and blessing of liberty-loving people everywhere." - Ezra Taft Benson

"If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point." - Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

"Of the origin of things we know nothing, and can know nothing. Perfection does not reveal itself to us as existent in the beginning; but as something that ought to be, something new which we are to help create. Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions." - Felix Adler

"The exercises of our meeting are to be simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism. They are to consist of a lecture mainly, and, as a pleasing and grateful auxiliary, of music to elevate the heart and give rest to the feelings." - Felix Adler

"Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

"Life without sex might be safer but it would be unbearably dull." - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

"Politicians seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged? Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can?t fulfill ? that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope?" - H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

"Once resolved, the trouble is over." - Italian Proverbs

"To taste the sweet, you must taste the bitter." - Italian Proverbs