Great Throughts Treasury

"It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth. " - François Rabelais

"The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what not to believe, of what to be and what not to be." - Frank Herbert, formally Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr.

"Life is a well of joy; but for those out of whom an upset stomach speaks, which is the father of melancholy, all wells are poisoned. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind." - Giordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno

"What the Father gives is the capacity to be a self, freedom, and thus autonomy, but an autonomy which can be understood only as a surrender of self to the other." - Hans Urs von Balthasar

"The loss of popular respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is in the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds all together and causes them to revolve around a common center. Take this away, and men drop apart; there is no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules, with no more cohesion than so many grains of sand." - Henry Martyn Field

"Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance." - Hippocrates, fully known as Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos NULL

"He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, “I have lived”: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine. " - Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

"Tranquility is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right. Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of judgment, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimize an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary. " -

"Tranquility is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in? To say that a man gives himself gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness creates no right. Even if each man could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it. Before they come to years of judgment, the father can, in their name, lay down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary, in order to legitimize an arbitrary government, that in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it; but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary. " - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"What a father says to his children is not heard by the world, but it will be heard by posterity." - Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

"The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother." - John Wooden, fully John Robert Wooden

"My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning, and may be many; but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother." - Louisa May Alcott

"My earliest memories of my father are of seeing him work at his desk and realizing that he was happy. I did not know it then, but that was one of the most precious gifts a father can give his child." - Malcolm Gladwell

"A man who is not a father to his children can never be a real man." - Mario Puzo, fully Mario Gianluigi Puzo

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." - Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

"If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up--lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone. The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well." - Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson

"The everlasting and paternal wisdom saith, "Whoso heareth Me is not ashamed." If he is ashamed of anything he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh in Me sineth not. Whoso confesseth Me and feareth Me, shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and be at unity with himself." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

"You don't have to be famous. You just have to make your mother and father proud of you." - Meryl Streep, born Mary Louise Streep

"Among those points of self-education which take up the form of mental discipline, there is one of great importance, and, moreover, difficult to deal with, because it involves an internal conflict, and equally touches our vanity and our ease. It consists in the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish for, and the necessity of resistance to these desires. It is impossible for any one who has not been constrained, by the course of his occupation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self-correction, to be aware of the amount of error in relation to judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active promoters of error. In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense." - Michael Faraday

"In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense." - Michael Faraday

"During the next hundred years, the question for those who love liberty is whether we can survive the most insidious and duplicitous attacks from within, from those who undermine the virtues of our people, doing in advance the work of the Father of Lies. “There is no such thing as truth,” they teach even the little ones. “Truth is bondage. Believe what seems right to you. There are as many truths as there are individuals. Follow your feelings. Do as you please. Get in touch with your self. Do what feels comfortable.” Those who speak in this way prepare the jails of the twenty-first century. They do the work of tyrants." - Michael Novak

"A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him puts a blindfold over his eyes so that he does not see his defects but considers them signs of charm and intelligence and recounts them to his friends as if they were clever and witty." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"For it is the suffering flesh, it is suffering, it is death, that lovers perpetuate upon the earth. Love is at once the brother, son, and father of death, which is its sister, mother, and daughter. And thus it is that in the depth of love there is a depth of eternal despair, out of which springs hope and consolation." - Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo

"Indomitable perseverance is the highest offering to my Guru. The best way to please Him is to endure the hardship of meditation! Abiding in this cave, alone, is the noblest service to the Dakinis! To devote myself to the Holy Dharma is the best service to Buddhism -- to devote my life to meditation, thus to aid my helpless, sentient fellow beings! To love death and sickness is a blessing through which to cleanse one's sins; to refuse forbidden food helps one to attain realization and enlightenment; to repay my Father Guru's bounties I meditate, and meditate again." - Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL

"The interpretations of Freud are more and more successful because they are among the myths accessible to modern man. The myth of the murdered father, among others, reconstituted and interpreted in Totem and Taboo. It would be impossible to ferret out a single example of slaying the father in primitive religions or mythologies. This myth was created by Freud. And what is more interesting: the intellectual élite accept it (is it because they understand it? Or because it is "true" for modern man?)" - Mircea Eliade

"[paraphrase] Of the three goods, the Mohists' concept of “order” (zhi) calls for special attention. This is a complex good comprising a variety of conditions the Mohists probably regard as constitutive of the good social life. From passages in which the Mohists characterize zhi (order) and its opposite, luan (disorder, turmoil), we find that the elements of “order” include at least four sorts of conditions. All levels of society conform to unified moral standards, and incentives and disincentives based on these standards are administered fairly by virtuous leaders, as described in Mohist political theory. Peace and social harmony prevail, characterized negatively as the absence of crime, deceit, harassment, injury, conflict, and military aggression. Members of society manifest virtues constitutive of the proper performance of their relational social roles as ruler or subject, father or son, and elder or younger brother. Order obtains only when the ruler is benevolent, his subjects are loyal, fathers are kind, sons are filial, and elder and younger brothers display brotherly love and respect. (Like much ancient thought, Mohism has a sexist bias, and with few exceptions the texts disregard the social roles of women.) Community members habitually engage in reciprocal assistance and charity, sharing information, labor, education, and surplus goods and aiding the destitute and unfortunate. In summary, “benefit to the world” is a general conception of welfare comprising social harmony and public security; economic prosperity and a thriving population and family; reciprocal cooperation among neighbors and charity for the needy; and good social relations, manifested in the exercise of virtues corresponding to the fundamental social roles." - Mozi or Mo-tze, Mocius or Mo-tzu, original name Mo Di, aka Master Mo NULL

"We have come here to learn about the creations, about God's secret, and about God's grace. We are the form of light. There are six kinds of lives and we are the form of light. We have come here to learn the sirr, the secret connection between ourselves and His power, to study our Father and the story of where we were before. Within this body, within this show, there is much we must learn. We have come here to learn, not to dance on this dramatic stage or to watch show after show. We have come here to open and look within everything and see our Father. Each thing that we enjoy or feel sorrow about must be opened, and we must see God within. That is the lesson we have come to learn." - Bawa Mahaiyadden, fully Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

"Hear, my son, the instruction of your father and don't forsake the teaching of your mother (Mishlei 1:8). Get into the habit of always speaking calmly to everyone. This will prevent you from anger, a serious character flaw which causes people to sin... Once you have distanced yourself from anger, the quality of humility will enter your heart.This radiant quality is the finest of all admirable traits... so that you will succeed in all your ways. Thus you will succeed and merit the World to Come which lies hidden away for the righteous." - Nahmanides, aka Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym RaMBaN NULL

"The world is always ending for someone. It’s a good line. I give it to the father of the child. He says it to his wife. ‘The world is always ending for someone,’ he says. She is trying to quieten the baby, and does not hear him. I doubt that it would matter if she did." - Neil Gaiman, fully Neil Richard Gaiman

"Courage is the father of success." - Nigerian Proverbs

"Of all things I liked books best. My father had a large library and whenever I could manage I tried to satisfy my passion for reading. He did not permit it and would fly in a rage when he caught me in the act. He hid the candles when he found that I was reading in secret. He did not want me to spoil my eyes. But I obtained tallow, made the wicking and cast the sticks into tin forms, and every night I would bush the keyhole and the cracks and read, often till dawn." - Nikola Tesla

"Now, I must tell you of a strange experience which bore fruit in my later life. We had a cold [snap] drier than even observed before. People walking in the snow left a luminous trail. [As I stroked] Mačak's back, [it became] a sheet of light and my hand produced a shower of sparks. My father remarked, this is nothing but electricity, the same thing you see on the trees in a storm. My mother seemed alarmed. Stop playing with the cat, she said, he might start a fire. I was thinking abstractly. Is nature a cat? If so, who strokes its back? It can only be God, I concluded. I cannot exaggerate the effect of this marvelous sight on my childish imagination. Day after day I asked myself what is electricity and found no answer. Eighty years have gone by since and I still ask the same question, unable to answer it." - Nikola Tesla

"Give your children your love, but don’t give your ideologies. Don’t make them Catholics and communists; that is poisoning them. Don’t make them Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists; that is very destructive. Give your love, give your loving nourishment, and give them strength enough to inquire who they are, what this reality is all about. Give them every support so they can go on in life with an adventurous spirit. Then you are helping them; then you are really educating them. Ordinarily, whatsoever exists in the name of education is nothing but mis-education. Real education is helping the person to be himself. It is possible only if you love the person for his own sake, for no other motive. If there is a motive, your love is contaminated. Then you are not a real father or a real mother." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"No one really understood music unless he was a scientist, her father had declared, and not just a scientist, either, oh, no, only the real ones, the theoreticians, whose language was mathematics. She had not understood mathematics until he had explained to her that it was the symbolic language of relationships. And relationships, he had told her, contained the essential meaning of life." - Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

"The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born." - Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

"When you understand the degree of attention which the requisitions of your physical nature demand, you will perceive how little labour suffices for their satisfaction. Your Heavenly Father knoweth you have need of these things. The universal Harmony, or Reason, which makes your passive frame of thought its dwelling, in proportion to the purity and majesty of its nature will instruct you, if ye are willing to attain that exalted condition, in what manner to possess all the objects necessary for your material subsistence. All men are to become thus pure and happy. All men are called to participate in the community of Nature's gifts. The man who has fewest bodily wants approaches nearest to the Divine Nature." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too." - Peter De Vries

"We, that would be known the father of our people, in our study, and vigilance for their safety, must not change their ploughshares into swords, and force them from the secure shade of their own vines, to be scorched with the flames of war." - Philip Massinger

"When you have extended your hands and taken the body, bow, and put your hands before your face, and worship the living Body whom you hold. Then speak with him in a low voice, and with your gaze resting upon him say to him: When we gather, we are privileged to carry You, the Living GOD, Who is incarnate in the bread, and we embrace You in our palms, LORD of the worlds whom no world has contained. You have circumscribed Yourself in a fiery coal within our fleshly palms–You LORD, Who with Your palm measured out the dust of the earth. You are holy, GOD incarnate in my hands in a fiery coal which is a body. See, we hold You, although there is nothing that contains You; our bodily hands embrace You, LORD of natures whom a fleshly womb embraced. Within a womb You became a circumscribed body, and now within each hand, You appear to us as a small morsel. You alone have made us worthy to approach You and receive You. You enable our hands to embrace You confidently–You make us worthy, LORD, to eat You in a holy manner and to taste the food of Your body as a taste of your life. Instead of the stomach, the body’s member, may the womb of our intellect and the hand of our mind receive You. May You be conceived in us as You were in the womb of the Virgin. There You appeared as an infant, and Your hidden self was revealed to the world as corporeal fruit; may You also appear in each of us here and be revealed by us in fruits that are spiritual works and just labors pleasing to Your will. And by your food may our desires be killed; and by the drinking of Your cup may our passions be quenched. And instead of just feeding the members of our human body, may our thoughts receive strength from the nourishment of Your Body. Like the manifest members of our body, may our hidden thoughts be engaged in exercise and in running and in works according to Your living commands and Your spiritual laws. From the food of Your Body and the drinking of Your Blood may we grow in integrity and unity and wax strong inwardly, and excel outwardly, and run diligently, and attain to the full stature of an interior human being, individually and corporately. May we each and in our global and local covenant communities, become more like The Perfect Man, mature in intelligence, residing in all our spiritual members, our head being crowned with the crown of Thy perfection, obedient to the Word and Command of Your Father in all of our behavior. May we, Your Church, become a royal diadem in Your hands, as You promised us, O hidden GOD whose manifestness we embrace in the perfection of Your Body." - Philoxenus of Mabbug, aka Aksnāyā NULL

"In grafting we divide and open up the trunk, which will receive the graft. Now the fruit of this graft, selected by the gardener, is not the ordinary fruit of the tree to be grafted. In a similar fashion, the eternal Father whom the gospel mentions as the divine cultivator of the gospel, chose a wild plant from the earth (if we consider it in its origin and nature), which is humanity bearing the likeness of sinful flesh. God separated the nature from the person that would have been proper and connatural to it and that would have flowed out of its essence once it was actuated and existing. He substituted the heavenly graft, and the divine subsistence, the very person of his Son in the place of the human subsistence, which had been negated. Therefore this plant, divided in this way and wounded in what is most intimate, most appropriate and most connatural to its being, bears fruits that are different and do not belong to it, but rather to what was grafted onto it." - Pierre de Bérulle

"Nothing, it appears to me is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment and the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of nature and the father of art." - Pietro Arentino

"Judah ben Teima used to say: “Be strong as the leopard, swift as the eagle, fleet as the gazelle, and brave as the lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven. He also used to say: The impudent are for Gehenna and the affable for Paradise. (He used to pray ): May it be thy will, O Lord our G-d and G-d of our fathers, that the Temple be rebuilt speedily in our days, and grant our portion in your Torah… At five years old a person should study the Scriptures, at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bride chamber, at twenty for one's life pursuit, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty to be an elder, at seventy for gray hairs, at eighty for special strength (Psalm 90:10), at ninety for decrepitude, and at a hundred a man is as one who has already died and has ceased from the affairs of this world.”" - Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

"This inscription awakens the memory of people whose sons and daughters were destined for total extermination. This people draws its origin from Abraham, our Father in faith. The very people that received from God the commandment, thou shalt not kill, itself experienced in a special measure what is meant by killing. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference." - Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

"It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father." - Pope John XXIII, born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli NULL

"Ours will be the task of defining and explaining the notions of the most important truths… as well as that of leading back to the rule and straight path of honesty both in public and in private life, in the social and political spheres, all men and, indeed, each and every one of them, those who must obey as well as those whose duty is to command, for they are all sons of the same Father Who is in Heaven. We are also quite conscious of the fact that some will be shocked in hearing Us mention that We will, through necessity, concern Ourselves with politics. But anyone seeking to judge fairly will be quick to understand that the Sovereign Pontiff, who has been invested with the Supreme Magisterium, has no right whatsoever of divorcing questions relating to politics from the field of Faith and Morals. Moreover, in his capacity as chief and sovereign guide of that perfect society which is the Catholic Church, a society made up of men and also set up amongst men, he can only wish to foster and entertain close relationships with [all] heads of countries and members of governments if he wishes to see all the countries of the world protect their Catholic citizens' liberty and security." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

"Conclusion: What, then, is the importance of modern science for the argument for the existence of God based on the mutability of the cosmos? By means of exact and detailed research into the macrocosm and the microcosm, it has considerably broadened and deepened the empirical foundation on which this argument rests, and from which it concludes to the existence of an Ens a se, immutable by His very nature. It has, besides, followed the course and the direction of cosmic developments, and, just as it was able to get a glimpse of the term toward which these developments were inexorably leading, so also has it pointed to their beginning in time some five billion years ago. Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic of physical proofs, it has confirmed the contingency of the universe and also the well-founded deduction as to the epoch when the cosmos came forth from the hands of the Creator. Hence, creation took place in time. Therefore, there is a Creator. Therefore, God exists! Although it is neither explicit nor complete, this is the reply we were awaiting from science, and which the present human generation is awaiting from it. It is a reply which bursts forth from nature and calm consideration of only one aspect of the universe; namely, its mutability. But this is already enough to make the entire human race, which is the peak and the rational expression of both the macrocosm and the microcosm, become conscious of its exalted Maker, realize that it belongs to Him in space and in time and then, falling on its knees before His sovereign majesty, begin to invoke His name: Rerum, Deus, tenax vigor,-Immotus in te permanens, -- Lucis diurnae tempora successibus determinans (Hymn for None). (A free English translation is: "O God, creation's secret force/Thyself unmoved, yet motion's source/Who from the morn till evening's ray/Through every change dost guide the day.") The knowledge of God as sole Creator, now shared by many modern scientists, is indeed, the extreme limit to which human reason can attain. Nevertheless, as you are well aware, it does not constitute the last frontier of truth. In harmonious cooperation, because all three are instruments of truth, like rays of the same sun, science, philosophy, and, with still greater reason, Revelation, contemplate the substance of this Creator whom science has met along its path unveil His outlines and point out His features. Revelation, above all, makes His presence, so to speak, immediate, vitalizing, and loving, like that presence of which either the simple faithful or the scientist is aware in his inner soul when he recites unhesitatingly the concise terms of the ancient Apostles' Creed: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." Today, after so many centuries which were centuries of civilization because they were centuries of religion, the need is not so much to reveal God for the first time as it is rather to recognize Him as a Father, reverence Him as a lawgiver, and fear Him as a Judge. If they would be saved, the nations must adore the Son, the loving Redeemer of mankind, and bow to the loving inspirations of the Spirit, the fruitful Sanctifier of souls. This persuasion, taking its remote inspiration from science, is crowned by Faith which, being ever more deeply rooted in the consciousness of the people, will truly be able to assure basic progress for the march of civilization. This is a vision of the whole, of the present as of the future, of matter as of the spirit, of time as of eternity, which, as it illuminates the mind, will spare to the men of today a long tempestuous night. It is that Faith which at this moment inspires Us to raise toward Him Whom we have just invoked as Vigor, Immotus, and Pater, a fervent prayer for all His children entrusted to Our care: Largire lumen vespere,-Quo vita nusquam decidat, (Hymn for None)-light for the life of time, light for the life of eternity." - Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL

"What I have to face is that 'Barb,' the name on my ID tag, is not exactly the same person as Barbara. 'Barb' is what I was called as a child, and still am by my siblings, and I sense that at some level I'm regressing. Take away the career and the higher education, and maybe what you're left with is this original Barb, the one who might have ended up working at Wal-Mart for real if her father hadn't managed to climb out of the mines. So it's interesting, and more than a little disturbing, to see how Barb turned out — that she's meaner and slyer than I am, more cherishing of grudges, and not quite as smart as I'd hoped. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander

"My father avoided any confrontation with my mother and failed to see what was going on before his eyes. Although he didn’t apply my mother’s passionate pedagogic methods – on the rare occasions of his presence he even showed me some warmth and tenderness – he never stood up for my rights. He never gave me the feeling that I had any rights at all; he never confirmed my observations and admitted my mother’s cruelty." - Alice Miller, née Rostovski

"A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind. " - Albert Einstein