Great Throughts Treasury

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simple to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think. "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these things are things that cannot inspire envy." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"One, who takes lessons from his past and improves on himself need not fear the future." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"The remedy for the Great Depression is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others… the American way." - Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

"The world is in balance… To light a candle is to cast a shadow." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"At one time, the state of culture in Czechoslovakia was described, rather poignantly, as a 'Biafra of the spirit'. . . I simply do not believe that we have all lain down and died. I see far more than graves and tombstones around me. I see evidence of this in . . . expensive books on astronomy printed in a hundred thousand copies (they would hardly find that many readers in the USA)." - Václav Havel

"In late 1989, the profound transformation that took place in this country brought me here to Prague Castle. It all happened so suddenly that I did not even have time to properly consider whether or not I was up to the task, and I was sincerely of the opinion that I would just take it on for a few months until the first free elections." - Václav Havel

"Poles are able to reflect their history, they respect it. Who knows if anybody will remember when we commemorate our 25 years [since the 1989 Velvet Revolution]." - Václav Havel

"That is very dangerous... in an absolutely legal way and in accordance with the wording of the law, but against the spirit of the ... constitution." - Václav Havel

"The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin -- and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost." - Václav Havel

"The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him." - Václav Havel

"The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said." - Václav Havel

"There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit." - Václav Havel

"There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight." - Václav Havel

"Enthusiasm has great strength. There is no greater strength than enthusiasm. There is nothing which is not attainable in this world for the enthusiastic." - Valmiki NULL

"One who is bent on courting his death will not take kindly to sage counsel given by his well-wishers" - Valmiki NULL

"The thundering of clouds which have spent all their water does not produce any rain. But the really valiant do not roar in vain; they show their valor in action also." - Valmiki NULL

"Whenever logical processes of thought are employed— that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove— there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine." - Vannevar Bush

"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

"A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"You are convinced by experience that very few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought." - Thucydides NULL

"The universe is an intelligence test" - Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

"You can rest assured that if you devote your time and attention to the highest advantage of others, the Universe will support you, always and in the nick of time." - Tom Butler-Bowdon

"A writer's first obligation is not to the many-bellied beast but to the many-tongued beast, not to Society, but to Language. Everyone has a stake in the husbandry of Society, but Language is the writer's special charge. A grandiose animal it is, too. If it weren't for Language there wouldn't be Society." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"I would employ the word noetic to express all those cognitions which originate in the mind itself." - William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

"Some associations may revivify it enough to make it flash, after a long oblivion, into consciousness." - William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

"But psychology is passing into a less simple phase. Within a few years what one may call a microscopic psychology has arisen in Germany, carried on by experimental methods, asking of course every moment for introspective data, but eliminating their uncertainty by operating on a large scale and taking statistical means. This method taxes patience to the utmost, and could hardly have arisen in a country whose natives could be bored. Such Germans as Weber, Fechner, Vierordt, and Wundt obviously cannot ; and their success has brought into the field an array of younger experimental psychologists, bent on studying the elements of the mental life, dissecting them out from the gross results in which they are embedded, and as far as possible reducing them to quantitative scales. The simple and open method of attack having done what it can, the method of patience, starving out, and harassing to death is tried ; the Mind must submit to a regular siege, in which minute advantages gained night and day by the forces that hem her in must sum themselves up at last into her overthrow. There is little of the grand style about these new prism, pendulum, and chronograph-philosophers. They mean business, not chivalry. What generous divination, and that superiority in virtue which was thought by Cicero to give a man the best insight into nature, have failed to do, their spying and scraping, their deadly tenacity and almost diabolic cunning, will doubtless someday bring about." - William James

"But who does not see that in a disbelieved or doubted or interrogative or conditional proposition, the ideas are combined in the same identical way in which they are in a proposition which is solidly believed." - William James

"The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one." - William James

"The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers." - William James

"The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck." - William James

"Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not." - William James

"When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion." - William James

"O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart." - William Shakespeare

"Our life is short, but to expand that span to vast eternity is virtue's work." - William Shakespeare

"It has become a conviction with me that psychology may in the long run do much to change the conception of the fundamental nature of the religious life, which, on the whole, is now too generally made a matter of doctrine. It is too intellectual At the doors of most churches one is met by required beliefs in a particular conception of God, in a speculative theory about the divinity of Christ, definite ideas concerning sin and salvation, the efficacy of ordinances, and the claims of supernatural revelation. What people are really seeking is access to refreshing fountains of life, sources of strength and guidance. They crave association with people and institutions which may convey to them a sense of what is most worthwhile in life and what may furnish impulsion toward real and enduring values. They know pretty well what those values are when allowed to let their own deepest desires express themselves." - Edward Scribner Ames

"It is no use whatever preaching Wisdom to men: you must inject it into their blood." - Egyptian Proverbs

"I can understand J. Edgar Hoover, because he wasn't inaccurate.… He said that we were the main threat. We were trying to be the main threat. We were trying to be the vanguard organization. J. Edgar Hoover was an adversary, but he had good information. We were plugged into all of the revolutionary groups in America, plus those abroad. We were working hand-in-hand with communist parties here and around the world, and he knew that." - Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver

"In responding to this poignant cry for help, Einstein offered no easy solace, and this very fact must have heartened the student and lightened the lonely burden of his doubts. Here is Einstein's response. It was written in English and sent from Princeton on 3 December 1950, within days of receiving the letter:" - Albert Einstein

"The inspired scribbler always has the gift for gossip in our common usage he or she can always inspire the commonplace with an uncommon flavor, and transform trivialities by some original grace or sympathy or humor or affection." - Elizabeth Drew, aka Elizabeth Brenner

"If I – as a beneficiary of that exact formula – will concede that my own life was indeed enriched by that precise familial structure, will the social conservatives please (for once!) concede that this arrangement has always put a disproportionately cumbersome burden on women? Such a system demands that mothers become selfless to the point of near invisibility in order to construct these exemplary environments for their families. And might those same social conservatives – instead of just praising mothers as sacred and noble – be willing to someday join a larger conversation about how we might work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised and healthy families can prosper without women have to scrape bare the walls of their own souls to do so?" - Elizabeth Gilbert

"If you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) does eventually pass." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"The search for satisfaction to Aahdf to protection and interest Almatatin, but a generous gift to the world. Saved one of every misery, Azaha of the way. To dream an obstacle, not in front of himself, but also in front of others. Only then will be free to serve the people and enjoy Bhbhm." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated staue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket. Prayer is a realtionship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm ainming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"It does pay to be honest. It pays in rewarding relationships. It pays in unblocked energy. It pays in passion. To stand tall in who you are, unafraid to reveal what you want and need, kind enough to tell the truth, and brave enough to bear the consequences, is a telling sign of spiritual development." - Elizabeth Lesser

"Spirituality is a brave search for the truth about existence, fearlessly peering into the mysterious nature of life." - Elizabeth Lesser

"A man after death, is not a natural but a spiritual man; nevertheless he still appears in all respects like himself." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"So far any one shuns evils, so far as he does good." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand most secret ways." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"The sole means of protecting your solitude is to offend everyone, beginning with those you love." - Emil M. Cioran