Great Throughts Treasury

"Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual is Later-woven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other." - John Quincy Adams

"The American cultural ideal of the self-made man, of everyone standing on his own feet, is as tragic a picture as the initiative – destroying dependence on a benevolent despot. We all need each other. This type of interdependence is the greatest challenge to the maturity of individual and group functioning." - Kurt Lewin

"In general, kids have very little tolerance for humiliation or failure. One of a student's most important goals is to make it through the day without embarrassment. Imagine then, the frustration of children with differences in learning, who are at risk of growing up deprived of experiencing success. Naturally, they compare themselves to their peers and siblings. While some may see themselves as "different," many will feel inferior. Unfortunately, these feelings are likely to endure. When they do, serious complications can develop including plummeting self- esteem, behavior problems, excessive dependence on peers, alienation from family, deep anxiety, and a loss of motivation. The sad reality is that a difference in learning, not addressed as such, can lead to anti-social behavior, substance abuse, dropping out, and other serious forms of maladjustment." - Mel Levine, formally Melvin D Levine

"In the true married relationship, the independence of husband and wife will be equal, their dependence mutual, and their obligations reciprocal." - Lucretia Mott, fully Lucretia Coffin Mott

"I have learned from Nature that dependence on unnatural beliefs weakens us in the struggle and shortens our breath for the race." - Luther Burbank

"Thus I define religion as the awareness – accompanied by the emotions and determined by them – of dependence from something, defined by the tradition, which at the given stage of cultural evolution of man exceeds his cognitive capabilities; this awareness then causes in man, under the action of emotions and tradition, volitive states leading to an endeavor to change somehow the supposed dependence or at least perform some influence on what the man of given cultural stage considers to be the cause of the dependence." - Max Planck, fully Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck

"The economic dependence of women is perhaps the greatest injustice that has been done to us, and has worked the greatest injury to the race." - Nellie McClung

"All creatures are united to God alone in an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be in reciprocal dependence upon one another." - Nicolas Malebranche

"If outer events bring him to a position where he can bear them no longer and force him to cry out to the higher power in helplessness for relief or if inner feelings bring humiliation and recognition of his dependence on that power, this crushing of the ego may open the door to grace. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"Absolute faith is the dependence of the experience of nonbeing on the experience on being and the dependence of the experience of meaninglessness on the experience of meaning. Even in the state of despair one has enough being to make despair possible." - Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich

"We all need love. To love is part of human nature, as they eat, drink and sleep. Sometimes when we remain absolutely alone, watching the beautiful sunset, I think, this beauty is not important because I have someone to share it. In these moments we must ask ourselves: how often they ask us to loving, and we turn to the other side? How many times we're afraid to get closer to someone cast doubts as to say that we love this person? Beware of loneliness. It resembles the dependence of the most dangerous drug. If the sun is no longer meaningful to you, become more humble and go to look for love. Know that and other spiritual blessings, the more you give, the more you get back. " - Paulo Coelho

"The People With AIDS (PWA) Self-Empowerment Movement is a social movement by those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS which grew out of San Francisco in the early 1980s. The PWA Self-Empowerment Movement believes that those diagnosed as having AIDS should "take charge of their own life, illness, and care, and to minimize dependence on others". The attitude that exists throughout the movement is that one should not assume that their life is over and will end soon solely because they have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Although most of the earliest organizers have died, and organizations dissolved or reconfigured into AIDS service organizations (ASOs) the self-empowerment and self-determination aspects of the movement continue. Possibly the best known example of a continuing PWA group is AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT-UP), which has chapters around the world and has had great success bringing attention to and change regarding issues concerning PWAs. PWA is also used simply to mean "person with HIV/AIDS", regardless of whether that person is associated with the PWA Self-Empowerment Movement. [from wikipedia]" - People with AIDS Coalition NULL

" The variety of life in nature can be compared to a vast library of unread books, and the plundering of nature is comparable to the random discarding of whole volumes without having opened them, and learned from them. Our critical dependence on the great variety of nature for the progress we have already made has been amply documented. Indifference to the loss of species is, in effect, indifference to the future, and therefore a shameful carelessness about our children." - Peter Matthiessen

"Religion, in its most general view, is such a Sense of God in the soul, and such a conviction of our obligations to him, and of our dependence upon him, as shall engage us to make it our great care to conduct ourselves in a manner which we have reason to believe will be pleasing to him." - Philip Doddridge

"When in any undertaking we put our main dependence and trust in an individual or individuals and not in the Supreme Power, we are off the main track of the most perfect success." - Prentice Mulford

"The people of the two nations [French and English] must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing." - Richard Cobden

"The Washingtonians who watch a President have more to think about than his professional reputation. They also have to think about his standing with the public outside Washington. They have to gauge his popular prestige. Because they think about it, public standing is a source of influence for him, another factor bearing on their willingness to give him what he wants.Prestige, like reputation, is a subjective factor, a matter of judgment. It works on power just as reputation does through the mechanism of anticipated reactions. The same men, Washingtonians, to the judging. In the case of reputation they anticipate reactions from the President. In the instance of prestige they anticipate reactions from the public. Most members of the Washington community depend upon outsiders to support them or their interests. The dependence may be as direct as votes, or it may be as indirect as passive toleration. Dependent men must take account of popular reaction to their actions. What their publics may think of them becomes a factor, therefore, in deciding how to deal with the desires of a President. His prestige enters into that decision; their publics are part of his. Their view from inside Washington of how outsiders view him thus affects his influence with them." - Richard Neustadt, fully Richard Elliott Neustadt

"The Perfect Way is difficult only for those who pick and choose; do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference, and Heaven and Earth are set apart: if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease... There is no need to seek Truth; only stop having views... The ultimate Truth about both Extremes is that they are One Emptiness." - Sen T’Sen, aka Seng T'San, Jianzhi Sengcan, Kanchi Sosan, Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen

"We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes towards Man, out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence - trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

"I do not like war and I do not like strikes, but I am unwilling to oppose all wars and for the same reason I am unwilling to say that strikes are wrong. Both are right and necessary and should be used when the cause of justice can be retained in no other way." - Samuel Gompers

"The formation of unions is the expression on the part of the workers of a feeling which seems to me to be close kindred of the feeling which possessed the men who first battled against the control of political institutions by a few and the exclusion from political expression of the many. If there is any truth at all in democracy, if democracy has any real justification, it is as thoroughly justified in our industrial life as it ever was in our political life. (SG to Newton Baker, Jan. 3, 1923)" - Samuel Gompers

"Gayety is to good humor, as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as "right" in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as "brute force."" - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"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

"Prophecy is not an art, nor (when it is taken for prediction) a constant vocation, but an extraordinary and temporary employment from God, most often of good men, but sometimes also of the wicked." - Thomas Hobbes

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson

"Man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do." - Thomas Jefferson

"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, it’s necessary consequence." - Thomas Jefferson

"Our part is to pursue with steadiness what is right, turning neither to right nor left for the intrigues or popular delusions of the day, assured that the public approbation will in the end be with us." - Thomas Jefferson

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise..." - Thomas Jefferson

"The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions." - Thomas Jefferson

"Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?" - Thomas Jefferson

"God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief… than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. And yet, abstractly speaking, what is more holy than the priesthood and less holy than the state of a criminal? The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life He listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it." - Thomas Merton

"Prayers and sacrifice must be used as the most effective spiritual weapons in the war against war, and like all weapons they must be used with deliberate aim: not just with a vague aspiration for peace and security, but against violence and against war. This implies that we are also willing to sacrifice and restrain our own instinct for violence and aggressiveness in our relations with other people. We may never succeed in this campaign, but whether we succeed or not, the duty is evident. It is the great task of our time. Everything else is secondary, for the survival of the human race itself depends upon it. We must at least face this responsibility and do something about it. And the first job of all is to understand the psychological forces at work in ourselves and in society." - Thomas Merton

"This may account for the extraordinary popularity of such works as the Tao Te Ching, and in a lesser degree for that of the Diamond and Heart Sutras and Padma Sambhava's Knowing the Mind. For despite the accretion of superfluous verbiage in which the essential doctrine of some of the latter has become embedded, their direct pointing at the truth, instead of explaining it, goes straight to the heart of the matter and allows the mind itself to develop its own vision. An elaborately developed thesis must always defeat its own end where this subject matter is concerned, for only indication could produce this understanding, which requires an intuitional faculty, and it could never be acquired wholesale from without." - Wei Wu Wei, pen name for Terence James Stannus Gray

"Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations." - Wendell Berry

"Every day do something that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Love someone who doesn't deserve it. Plant sequoias. Be joyful even though you've considered the facts. Practice resurrection." - Wendell Berry

"History leaves no doubt that among of the most regrettable crimes committed by human beings have been committed by those human beings who thought of themselves as civilized. What, we must ask, does our civilization possess that is worth defending? One thing worth defending, I suggest, is the imperative to imagine the lives of beings who are not ourselves and are not like ourselves: animals, plants, gods, spirits, people of other countries, other races, people of the other sex, places and enemies." - Wendell Berry

"No wonder so many sermons are devoted exclusively to spiritual subjects. If one is living by the tithes of history's most destructive economy, then the disembodiment of the soul becomes the chief of worldly conveniences." - Wendell Berry

"To imply by the word "terrorism" that this sort of terror is the work exclusively of "terrorists" is misleading. The "legitimate" warfare of technologically advanced nations likewise is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents. The distinction between the intention to perpetrate violence against innocents, as in "terrorism," and the willingness to do so, as in "war," is not a source of comfort." - Wendell Berry

"If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, his greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious." - Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

"If our friends do us a service, we think they owe it to us by their title of friend. We never think that they do not owe us their friendship." - Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

"Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance. But the spirit of prayer is for all times and occasions; it is a lamp that is to be always burning, a light to be ever shining: everything calls for it; everything is to be done in it and governed by it, because it is and means and wills nothing else but the totality of the soul -- not doing this or that, but wholly... given up to God to be where and what and how He pleases." - William Law

"We aim to give a 'wake-up call' to businesses, to alert them to the fact that the next 'fair-haired boy' of their organization just might be a woman." - Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole

"When we consider that women are treated as property it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in - let me in!' 'Who are you?' I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. 'Catherine Linton,' it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of LINTON? I had read EARNSHAW twenty times for Linton) - 'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!' As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"Economists themselves, like most specialists, normally suffer from a kind of metaphysical blindness, assuming that theirs is a science of absolute and invariable truths, without any presuppositions." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"Modern economics does not distinguish between renewable and non-renewable materials, as its very method is to equalize and quantify everything by means of a money price." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The economic calculus, as applied by present-day economics, forces the industrialist to eliminate the human factor because machines do not make mistakes, which people do. Hence the enormous effort at automation and the drive for ever-larger units. This means that those who have nothing to sell but their labor remain in the weakest possible bargaining position." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher