Great Throughts Treasury

"The attempted transformation of the Indian by the white man and the chaos that has resulted are but the fruits of the white man’s disobedience of a fundamental and spiritual law. “Civilization” has been thrust upon me since the days of reservations, and it has not added one whit to my sense of justice, to my reverence for the rights of life, to my love of truth, honesty, and generosity, or to my faith in Wakan Tanka, God of the Lakotas. For after all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in fine books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, man - all man - is still confronted with the Great Mystery." - Chief Luther Standing Bear

"If, like Jacob, you trust God in little things, He may answer you by great things." - James Ramsay MacDonald

"Prejudice is the conjurer of imaginary wrongs, strangling truth, overpowering reason, making strongmen weak and weak men weaker. God give us the large-hearted charity which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," which "thinketh no evil."" - John Macduff

"A man who has not learned to say “no” - who is not resolved that he will take God’s way in spite of every dog that can bark at him, in spite of every silvery voice that can woo him aside - will be a weak and wretched man till he dies." - Alexander Maclaren

"Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances... If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms... Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity." - Albertus Magnus, known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne

"Whoever knows himself knows God." -

"God has so framed us as to make freedom of choice and action the very basis of all moral improvement, and all our faculties, mental and moral, resent and revolt against the idea of coercion." -

"The God-given rights of parents are not understood or are ignored by our secularist educators and by many school administrators who, in the delusion of sovereignty, act as though they, not the parents, have complete control of the education of the child." - John T. McNicholas, fully John Timothy McNicholas

"That belief which inspires a man to higher life, which moves him to trample down his besetting sins, to help his weaker brother, to rise into communion with God, is to him a Divine voice." - George S. Merriam

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name." - Thomas Merton

"Every duty brings its peculiar delight, every denial its appropriate compensation, every thought its recompense, every love its elysium, every cross its crown; pay goes with performance as effect with cause. Meanness overreaches itself; vice vitiates whoever indulges it; the wicked wrong their own souls; generosity greatens; virtue exalts; charity transfigures; and holiness is the essence of angelhood. God does not require us to live on credit; he pays us what we earn as we earn it, good or evil, heaven or hell, according to our choice." - Arundell Charles St. John-Mildmay

"Do good unto others, as God has done good unto thee." -

"God changes not what is in a people, until they change what is in themselves." -

"God helps those who persevere." -

"You can always tell when a man is a great ways from God - he is always talking about himself, how good he is. But the moment he sees God by the eye of faith, he is down on his knees, and, like Job, he cries, “Behold I am vile.”" -

"Laughter, indeed, is God’s therapy... in order that we might understand that at the heart of our mortal existence there lies a mystery, at once unutterably beautiful and hilariously funny." - Madame de Motteville, Françoise Bertaut de Motteville

"Reason is God's gift, but so are the passions. Reason is as guilty as passion." -

"A mind filled with thoughts of God cannot entertain evil thoughts." -

"Life is sufficiently miraculous already - only we do not notice it. If we catch a glimpse of its mystery, we border momentarily on new emotions and thoughts, but this comes from within, as a momentary, individual awakening of the spirit. Eckhart says that we are at fault as long as we see God in what is outside us... All the liberating inner truth and vision that we need, apart from outer truth and facts about things is... ‘native within us.’" - Maurice Nicoll

"All naturalism in morality, that is all healthy morality, is dominated by an instinct of life - some commandment of life is fulfilled through a certain canon of ‘shall’ and ‘shall not’, some hindrance and hostile element on life’s road is thereby removed. Anti-natural morality, that is virtually every morality that has hitherto been taught, reverenced and preached, turns on the contrary precisely against the instincts of life - it is a now secret, now loud and impudent condemnation of these instincts. By saying ‘God sees into the heart’ it denies the deepest and the highest desires of life and takes God for the enemy of life." -

"The purpose of serving God... is to promote man's perfection." - Norzi NULL

"We humans are here because God wanted to behold God. He created us in His image and gave us free will to behave one way or another, to choose between doing the job of reflecting Him and doing what looks more exciting." - Sinéad O’Connor, fully Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor

"Revelations are the aberration of faith; they are an amusement that spoils simplicity in relation to God, that embarrasses the soul and makes it swerve from its directness in relation to God. They distract the soul and occupy it with others than God." - Jean-Jacques "J.J." Olier

"He that hath slight thought of sin never had great thoughts of God." - John Jason Owen

"A great man is one who has conquered himself. He has brought order, discipline and meaning into his life and prevented it from becoming the aimless, self-centered, repulsive existence to which he is drawn by his inherited weaknesses. The process begins when a man brings a center of interest into his life. This interest must be something inspiring and elevating. If you push these requirements far enough, the center of his life can only be God." - Harold Oxley

"Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and angels know of us." - Thomas Paine

"The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from on to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points - his duty to God, which every man must feel; and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by." - Thomas Paine

"If one lives with Nature a little while, he soon recognizes the harmony of creation... Each of us is, therefore, an instrument of God. When one thinks of his humble self in this light, life takes on a more profound meaning." - Alden C. Palmer

"Two men please God - who serves Him with all his heart because he knows Him; who seeks Him with all his heart because he knows Him not." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

"Thus we men, as God transmutes himself into one, we likewise on earth should resign ourselves and become one." -

"The pearl-oyster that contains the precious pearl is in itself of very little value, but it is essential for the growth of the pearl. The shell itself may prove to be of no use to the man who has got the pearl. So ceremonies and rites may not be necessary for him who has attained the Highest Truth - God." - Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

"Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul; so only can you be true to God." - Joseph Parker

"God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers." - William Penn

"Men may tire themselves in a labyrinth of search, and talk of God; but if we would know Him indeed, it must be from the impressions we receive of Him; and the softer our hearts are, the deeper and livelier those will be upon us." - William Penn

"The real value of any doctrine can only be determined by its influence on the conduct of man, with respect to himself, to his fellow-creatures, or to God." - Margaret Percival

"In the destiny of every moral being there is an object more worthy of God than happiness. It is character. And the grand aim of man's creation is the development of grand character - and grand character is, by its very nature, the product of probationary discipline." - Austin Phelps

"He who thinks that God has any quality and is not the One, injures not God, but himself." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"Nothing is better than to search for the true God, even if the discovery of Him eludes human capacity, since the very wish to learn, if earnestly entertained, produces untold joys and pleasures." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"To be pious towards God is to be affectionate towards men." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"An honest man’s the noblest work of God." - Alexander Pope

"There are no trifles in the moral universe of God. Speak but one true word today, and it shall go ringing on through the ages." -

"The height of all philosophy is to know thyself; and the end of this knowledge is to know God. Know thyself, that thou mayest know God; and know God, that thou mayest love him and be like him. In the one thou art initiated into wisdom; and in the other perfected in it." - Francis Quarles

"God, if I worship Thee in fear of hell, burn me in hell. And if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, withhold not Thine everlasting Beauty." -

"We are each put on this earth to make a particular contribution to humanity... Although God, the Almighty, has a plan for every one of us, He gives us choices. It is our responsibility to make the best of those choices in order to achieve our ultimate purpose." - Mary Lou Retton

"Listen to your conscience, for you may be listening to God." - J. H. Rhodes, fully John Harold Rhodes

"We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights - the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things in this world of God’s; but the way in which we expound these rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights." -

"To serve God is not to pass our lives on our knees in prayer; it is to discharge on earth those obligations which our duty requires." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Reason is like an officer when the King appears; the officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun." -

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love." -

"The lovers of God have no religion but God alone." -