Great Throughts Treasury

"With intelligence and humility and dedication as our ammunition, we can wage the peace throughout the world with a strength beyond armies, destroying nothing except hate and greed and distrust." - Paul G. Hoffman, fully Paul Gray Hoffman

"We have always liked to think ourselves less savage than the other animals. To say that people are "humane" is to say that they are kind; to say that they are "beastly," "brutal," or simply that they behave "like animals" is to suggest that they are cruel and nasty. We rarely stop to consider that the animal who kills with the least reason to do so is the human animal. We think of lions and wolves as savage because they kill; but they must kill, or starve. Humans kill other animals for sport, to satisfy their curiosity, to beautify their bodies, and to please their palates. Human beings also kill members of their own species for greed or power. Moreover, human beings are not content with mere killing. Throughout history they have shown a tendency to torment and torture both their fellow human beings and their fellow animals before putting them to death. No other animal shows much interest in doing this. " - Peter Singer

"This concentration of power and might, the characteristic mark of contemporary economic life, is the fruit that the unlimited freedom of struggle among competitors has of its own nature produced, and which lets only the strongest survive; and this is often the same as saying, those who fight the most violently, those who give least heed to their conscience… Unbridled ambition for power has succeeded greed for gain; all economic life has become tragically hard, inexorable, and cruel… How completely deceived, therefore, are those rash reformers who concern themselves with the enforcement of justice alone–and this, commutative justice–and in their pride reject the assistance of charity! Admittedly, no vicarious charity can substitute for justice which is due as an obligation and is wrongfully denied." -

"The media have just buried the last yuppie, a pathetic creature who had not heard the news that the great pendulum of public consciousness has just swung from Greed to Compassion and from Tex-Mex to meatballs. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander

"We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction." - Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

"That razor-edge where Greed and Caution meet." - Randall Jarrell

"Now look at it from the point of view of a particular child. He is just as closely related to each of his brothers and sisters as his mother is to them. The relatedness is 1/2 in all cases. Therefore he 'wants' his mother to invest some of her resources in his brothers and sisters. Genetically speaking, he is just as altruistically disposed to them as his mother is. But again, he is twice as closely related to himself as he is to any brother or sister, and this will dispose him to want his mother to invest in him more than in any particular brother or sister, other things being equal... Selfish greed seems to characterize much of child behavior" - Richard Dawkins

"Gambling operates under the premise that greed can be satisfied by luck." - Rita Mae Brown

"If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we must stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes." - Robert Oxton Bolt

"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas, but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere. I searched on the mountains and in the valleys, but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Kaaba in Mecca, but He was not there either. I questioned the scholars and philosophers, but He was beyond their understanding. I then looked into my heart, and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him; He was nowhere else to be found." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"Let the slogan go forth that we will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile." - Samuel Gompers

"That war transformed me from an ultra-pacifist to one willing to fight and sacrifice with my fellow countrymen in defense of the principle of living our own lives and working out our own destiny; and if there be a mad-man nation still, large or small, which will attempt to repeat that monumental crime I hope that the generations, perhaps yet unborn, of our self-governing civilized nations, may throw themselves with equal vigor in the battle to maintain the fundamental principles of freedom, justice and humanity." - Samuel Gompers

"The beasts of burden have their day of rest and recuperation and certainly what nature and nature's laws intended for them, can not be less so to civilized men." - Samuel Gompers

"The corner-stone of national defense is justice in fundamental relations of life -- economic justice." - Samuel Gompers

"There was a time when workmen were denied the right of leaving their employers, when they were part of the soil, owned by their employers, and any attempt on their part to leave was regarded as the escape of a slave, brought back, imprisoned, branded, and gibbeted. Not many years ago, when workmen counseled with each other for the purpose of resisting a reduction in their wages or making an effort to secure an increase, it was held to be a conspiracy punishable by imprisonment. Through the effort of organized labor, an enlightened public sentiment changed all this until to-day the right to unite for material, moral, and social improvement on the part of workers is accepted by all." - Samuel Gompers

"A child sucking at his mother's breast has become the prototype of every relation of love. The finding of an object is in fact a refinding of it; and, furthermore, introducing object loss as an unavoidable step in the path to mental evolution, that it is only later that the instinct loses that object, just at the time, perhaps, when the child is able to form a total idea of the person to whom the organ that is giving him satisfaction belongs." - Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

"In popular government results worthwhile can only be achieved by men who combine worthy ideals with practical good sense." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"War is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"He was simply not a hero, which is to say, he did not let his relationship with the man be determined by the woman." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"It is sometimes discouraging to see how small the peace movement is, and especially here in America where it is most necessary. But we have to remember that this is the usual pattern, and the Bible has led us to expect it. Spiritual work is done with disproportionately small and feeble instruments.. And now above all when everything is so utterly complex, and when people collapse under the burden of confusions and cease to think at all, it is natural that few may want to take on the burden of trying to effect something in the moral and spiritual way, in political action. Yet this is precisely what has to be done." - Thomas Merton

"People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating for themselves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all. They can only conceive one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men. They do not know that reality is to be sought not in division but in unity, for we are ‘members one of another.’" - Thomas Merton

"Humility is a virtue, but immodesty is a vice. A modest person is always judicious and intelligent. He always behaves humbly before a more learned person so that he can learn from him. The guru lays bare his heart before him. He believes that his disciple will remain obedient and continue to be grateful and serve him throughout his life; he will glorify his name. Against this, immodest person remains stupid. He always believes that he is worthless. Due to his inferiority complex, he loses all hopes of progress. He does not learn, even if guru wishes to teach him lovingly. He is lazy. He is like unnecessary weight for himself and others. He cannot even stand to admonishments. He is not ashamed of repeated wrongs committed by him. “I cannot do anything!” This thought only pervades his mind. That is why the learned say that if you want to progress in life, be humble." - Uttaradhyayana Sutra

"The ego is willing but the machine cannot go on. It's the last thing a man will admit, that his mind ages." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

"The search for moral guidance which shall not depend upon external authority has invariably ended in the acknowledgment of some new authority." - Walter Lippmann

"It is possible, I think, to say that... agriculture formed upon the understanding that it is sinful for people to misuse or destroy what they did not make. The Creation is a unique, irreplaceable gift, therefore to be used with humility, respect, and skill." - Wendell Berry

"So it is that the life force may take possession of a man-- so that in the end he may be possessed by something greater, no longer at all belonging to himself." - Wendell Berry

"The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn. His thought passes along the row ends like a mole. What miraculous seed has he swallowed that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water descending in the dark." - Wendell Berry

"The visions of the mind have a debt to reality that it is hard to get the mind to pay when it is under the influence of its visions." - Wendell Berry

"We have made it our overriding ambition to escape work, and as a consequence have debased work until it is only fit to escape from. We have debased the products of work and have been, in turn, debased by them." - Wendell Berry

"One can only blaspheme if one believes." - W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

"It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving men.... He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded.... When at last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still amazed.... John... sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?... If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard, aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility.... When at last a soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off home — the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his mother.... It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, 'will you step this way please sir?'... The manager was sorry, very very sorry — but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of course... before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square... and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat and said, 'John Jones you're a natural-born fool.' Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire...." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

"What the Soviet Constitution gives us no other state has been able to give in two hundred years." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"It is not sufficient that a few in society penetrate to the depths of living and offer fascinating accounts about the oneness of all beings. What is necessary in these critical times is that all sensitive and caring people make a personal discovery of the fact of oneness and allow compassion to flow in their lives. When compassion and realization of oneness becomes the dynamic of human relationship, then humankind will evolve." - Vimala Thakar

"And none could cry Murder, but only Justice done." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"But whatever the earthly history of this moment of charm, this vision of an absolutely holy life is, I am convinced, the invading, urging, inviting, persuading work of the Eternal One. It is curious that modern psychology cannot account wholly for flashes of insight of any kind, sacred or secular. It is as if a fountain of creative Mind were welling up, bubbling to expression within prepared spirits. There is an infinite fountain of lifting power, pressing within us, luring us by dazzling visions, and we can only say, The creative God comes into our souls. An increment of infinity is about us. Holy is imagination, the gateway of Reality into our hearts. The Hound of Heaven is on our track, the God of Love is wooing us to His Holy Life. Once having the vision, the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are. Obey now. Use what little obedience you are capable of, even if it be like a grain of mustard seed. Begin where you are. Live this present moment, this present hour as you now sit in your seats, in utter, utter submission and openness toward Him. Listen outwardly to these words, but within, behind the scenes, in the deeper levels of your lives where you are all alone with God the Loving Eternal One, keep up a silent prayer, "Open Thou my life. Guide my thoughts where I dare not let them go. But Thou darest. Thy will be done." Walk on the streets and chat with your friends. But every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience. I find this internal continuous prayer life absolutely essential. It can be carried on day and night, in the thick of business, in home and school. Such prayer of submission can be so simple. It is well to use a single sentence, repeated over and over and over again, such as this: "Be Thou my will. Be Thou my will," or "I open all before Thee. I open all before Thee," or "See earth through heaven, See earth through heaven." This hidden prayer life can pass, in time, beyond words and phrases into mere ejaculations, "My God, my God, my Holy One, my Love," or into the adoration of the Upanishad, "O Wonderful, O Wonderful, O Wonderful." Words may cease and one stands and walks and sits and lies in wordless attitudes of adoration and submission and rejoicing and exultation and glory." - Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly

"I know a little garden close Set thick with lily and red rose, where I would wander if I might from dewy dawn to dewy night. And have one with me wandering." - William Morris

"A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"I am concerned here exclusively with the problem of helping people in the non-modern sector… because all successes in the modern sector are likely to be illusory unless there is also a healthy growth—or at least a healthy condition of stability—among the very great numbers of people today whose life is characterized not only by dire poverty but also by hopelessness." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"If our intellectual leaders treat work as nothing but a necessary evil soon to be abolished as far as the majority is concerned, the urge to minimize it right away is hardly a surprising reaction, and the problem of motivation becomes insoluble." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"The arising of this error, so egregious and so firmly rooted, is closely connected with the philosophical, not to say religious, changes during the last three or four centuries in man's attitude to natureÂ…Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it. He even talks of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"I love every bone in their heads." - Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

"A genius with the IQ of a moron." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"As Brooks Adams put it, the sole problem of our ruling class is whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"Basler finds my Lincoln the 'phoniest historical novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading.'... Also, 'more than half the book could never have happened as told.' Unfortunately, he doesn't say which half. If I knew, we could then cut it free from the phony half and publish the result as Basler's Vidal's Lincoln." - Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

"Wise men change their minds, fools never." -