Great Throughts Treasury

"All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"The difference between machines and engines is obviously this, that machines need more workmen and greater power to make them take effect, as for instance ballistae and the beams of presses. Engines, on the other hand, accomplish their purpose at the intelligent touch of a single workman,..." - Vitruvius, fully Marcus Vitruvius Pollio NULL

"In this lucid and flexible pattern only one thing remained always stationary, but this fallacy went unnoticed by Martha. The blind spot was the victim. The victim showed no signs of life before being deprived of it. If anything, the corpse which had to be moved and handled before burial seemed more active than its biological predecessor." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"We should not try to mediate constructions' reality and realities' construction." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?" - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"But being a religious person, I would like to question the validity of everything for myself. That is the essence of religion, which is humility. Not to accept anything unless you understand the meaning there of, personally in your life. If you accept without understanding, you will be imposing upon the mind. And then you are neither true to the mind, nor true to the meaning. The essence of religion, which is humility, lies in uncovering the meaning of life, uncovering the meaning of every moment, learning the meaning for ourselves." - Vimala Thakar

"The three greatest concerns of men are these: to make him who is an enemy a friend, to make righteous him who is wicked, and to make the ignorant learned." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL

"It becomes essential to choose one's path. Life consists in making these choices. One develops by choosing. It requires strength to become a child of God ..." - Toyohiko Kagawa

"Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up." - Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

"I never varied from the managerial rule that the worst possible thing we could do was to lie dead in the water of any problem. Solve it. Solve it quickly, solve it right or wrong. If you solved it wrong, it would come back and slap you in the face and then you could solve it right. Lying dead in the water and doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business." - Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

"Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new." - Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.

"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of — I know a lot of these guys — reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?" - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

"Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon." - Dan Pink, fully Daniel H. Pink

"Though nature be ever so generous, yet can she not make a hero alone. Fortune must contribute her part too; and till both concur, the work cannot be perfected." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Nothing can or shall content my soul till I am evened with him, wife for wife, or failing so, yet that I put the Moor at least into a jealousy so strong that judgment cannot cure." - William Shakespeare

"See here, my friends and loving countrymen: this token serveth for a flag of truce betwixt ourselves and all our followers." - William Shakespeare

"What we have been saying in regard to imagination and memory, must be applied to contemplation, according as it is referred to either. If it be made to consist in retaining the perceptions; before the use of instituted signs it has only a habit which does not depend on us: but it has none at all, if it be made to consist in preserving the signs themselves." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"No one ever became poor through giving alms." - Italian Proverbs

"The buyer has need of a hundred eyes, the seller of but one." - Italian Proverbs

"Frodo drew himself up, and again Sam was startled by his words and his stern voice. 'On the Precious? How dare you?' he said. 'Think! Would you commit your promise to that, Smeagol? It will hold you. But it is more treacherous than you are. It may twist your words. Beware!" - J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien