Great Throughts Treasury

"The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country — or, for that matter, a region — to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people’s ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?" - Wendell Berry

"A child's reading is guided by pleasure, but his pleasure is undifferentiated; he cannot distinguish, for example, between aesthetic pleasure and the pleasures of learning or daydreaming. In adolescence we realize that there are different kinds of pleasure, some of which cannot be enjoyed simultaneously, but we need help from others in defining them. Whether it be a matter of taste in food or taste in literature, the adolescent looks for a mentor in whose authority he can believe. He eats or reads what his mentor recommends and, inevitably, there are occasions when he has to deceive himself a little; he has to pretend that he enjoys olives or War and Peace a little more than he actually does. Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity. Few of us can learn this without making mistakes, without trying to become a little more of a universal man than we are permitted to be. It is during this period that a writer can most easily be led astray by another writer or by some ideology. When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,'he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu', because, between twenty and forty, the surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it. After forty, if we have not lost our authentic selves altogether, pleasure can again become what it was when we were children, the proper guide to what we should read." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"He was my equal in beauty, a paragon of grace and charm, sparkling with wit, and burning with love. I adored him to distraction, to the point of idolatry: I loved him as one can never love twice." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"Really, to stop criticism, they say, one must die." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"We are related organically, and we have to live that relationship. To be attentive to the dynamics of the inner being is not creating a network of escapes to avoid responsibility. It is not continuing a false superiority that I am sensitive and you are not. It is simply recognizing that our personal relationships and collective relationships are miserable affairs, and that these relationships stimulate fear and anxieties and throw us on the defensive. However much we yearn for peace, emotionally we are not mature enough for peace, and our immaturity affects everything we do, every action we take, even the most worthy of actions." - Vimala Thakar

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Oh, Theo, why should I change — I used to be very passive and very gentle and quiet — I'm that no longer, but then I'm no longer a child either now — sometimes I feel my own man." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"When I have a model who is quiet and steady and with whom I am acquainted, then I draw repeatedly 'til there is one drawing that is different from the rest, which does not look like an ordinary study, but more typical and with more feeling." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, a potting shed, a wall where peaches ripen, than to burn like a meteor and leave no dust." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Septimus has been working too hard - that was all she could say to her own mother. To love makes one solitary, she thought." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren, and hear them cry without being tortured himself." - Victor Hugo

"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"Tears came to his eyes and I tried to comfort him. Then there was something else to do — to make my will: “Listen, Otto, if I don’t get back home to my wife, and if you should see her again, then tell her that I talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I have loved her more than anyone. Thirdly, the short time I have been married to her outweighs everything, even all we have gone through here.”" - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"The size of human suffering is absolutely relative. It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity--even under the most difficult circumstances--to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the size of human suffering is absolutely relative." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"A person who is respectful towards his land, civilization and language, attains greatness and he acquires all the happiness of life. His deeds should be such that makes the motherland, the culture and language proud." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

"Human beings perform good karma (deeds) in order to attain success." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

"O inimitable Enthusiasm! You successfully vanquish your enemy with the help of the powers derived from self-control and restraint." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

"Deities became his protector.... resolutions his messengers and people sat in his company." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"The nation can grow and prosper only if the population is healthy and strong both physically and morally." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"Why can I never set my heart on a possible thing?" - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"Wise men say that the root of victory is consultation and discussion with learned and wise men. ." - Valmiki NULL

"But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work are distributed among all, it only falls to each one to work for about four hours every day. The remaining hours are spent in learning joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play." - Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella

"As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens." - Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

"You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity: People doing stupid things without realizing or, instead, thinking they were doing good." - Tom Lehrer, fully Thomas Andrew Lehrer

"A full pistol scares one person, an empty one scares forty people." - Turkish Proverbs

"A thousand friends are too few; one enemy is one too many." - Turkish Proverbs

"The rich man’s wealth tires the poor man's jaw. (Used to make a point that poor talks too much about what the wealthy have.)" - Turkish Proverbs

"Who seeks a friend without faults dies alone." - Turkish Proverbs

"Who sows wheat with the devil will get its chaff." - Turkish Proverbs

"The simple definition of globalization is the interweaving of markets, technology, information systems, and telecommunications networks in a way that is shrinking the world from a size medium to a size small. It began decades ago, but accelerated dramatically over the past 10 years, as the price of computing power fell and the world became an ever-more densely interconnected place. People resist this shift — see, for example, the G8 protests of 2001 (one of the bloodiest uprisings in recent European history) or the recent rioting in Pittsburgh at this year’s G20 conference—because they think it primarily benefits big business elites to the detriment of everyone else. But globalization didn’t ruin the world—it just flattened it. And on balance that can benefit everyone, especially the poor. Globalization has pulled millions of people out of poverty in India and China, and multiplied the size of the global middle class. It has raised the global standard of living faster than that at any other time in the history of the world, and it is supporting astounding growth. All world economic activity was valued at $7 trillion in 1950. That’s equal to how much growth took place over just the past decade, even including the recent downturn. Whatever people’s fears of change, globalization is here to stay—and, if properly managed, it will be a good thing." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

"The germs of existence contained in this spot of earth, with ample food, and ample room to expand in, would fill millions of worlds in the course of a few thousand years." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"At last a vision has been vouchsafed us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good, the debased and decadent with the sound and vital. With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life without weakening or sentimentalizing it. There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to succeed and be great. Our thought has been "Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself," while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves. We had not forgotten our morals. We remembered well enough that we had set up a policy which was meant to serve the humblest as well as the most powerful, with an eye single to the standards of justice and fair play, and remembered it with pride. But we were very heedless and in a hurry to be great." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"I am not one of those who believe that a great standing army is the means of maintaining peace, because if you build up a great profession, those who form parts of it want to exercise their profession." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire." - Thucydides NULL

"The fact is that one side thinks that the profits to be won outweigh the risks to be incurred, and the other side would rather avoid danger than accept an immediate loss." - Thucydides NULL

"A friend should bear a friend's infirmities, but Brutus makes mine greater than they are. Julius Caesar (Cassius at IV, iii)" - William Shakespeare

"A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. Romeo and Juliet Act ii, Scene 5" - William Shakespeare

"Alack, our terrene moon is now eclipsed; and it portends alone the fall of Antony!" - William Shakespeare

"Be patient, for the world is broad and wide." - William Shakespeare

"Beshrow me but I love her heartily! For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself; And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul. The Merchant of Venice, Act ii, Scene 6" - William Shakespeare

"BRUTUS: How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport, that now on Pompey's basis lies along, no worthier than the dust! CASSIUS: So oft as that shall be, so often shall the knot of us be called the men that gave their country liberty. Julius Caesar, Act iii, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare

"Cesario, by the roses of the spring, by maidhood, honor, truth, and everything, I love thee so, that maugre all thy pride, nor wit nor reason can my passion hide." - William Shakespeare

"Come hither you that would be combatants. Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favor, quite to forget this quarrel and the cause. And you, my lords: remember where we are, in France, amongst a fickle wavering nation. If they perceive dissension in our looks and that within ourselves we disagree, how will their grudging stomachs be provoked to willful disobedience, and rebel! Beside, what infamy will there arise when foreign princes shall be certified that for a toy, a thing of no regard, king henry's peers and chief nobility destroyed themselves and lost the realm of France! O, think upon the conquest of my father, my tender years, and let us not forgo that for a trifle that was bought with blood! Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife. I see no reason, if I wear this rose, [puts on a red rose.] That any one should therefore be suspicious I more incline to Somerset than York. Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both. As well they may upbraid me with a crown because forsooth the king of scots is crowned. But your discretions better can persuade than I am able to instruct or teach; and therefore, as we hither came in peace, so let us still continue peace and love. Cousin of York, we institute your grace to be our regent in these parts of France; and, good my lord of Somerset, unite your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot; and like true subjects, sons of your progenitors, go cheerfully together and digest your angry choler on your enemies. Ourself, my lord protector, and the rest, after some respite will return to Calais; from thence to England, where I hope ere long to be presented, by your victories, with Charles, Alençon, and that traitorous rout. Henry VI, Act iv, Scene 1" - William Shakespeare