Great Throughts Treasury

"For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous, and the perpetual exercise of God’s power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"If spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change! But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity. To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be miraculous, and the perpetual existence of God's power seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"To be infatuated with the power of one’s own intellect is an accident which seldom happens but to those who are remarkable for the want of intellectual power. Whenever Nature leaves a hole in a person’s mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"A man may be outwardly successful all his life long, and die hollow and worthless as a puff-ball; and he may be externally defeated all his life long, and die in the royalty of a kingdom established within him. A man's true estate of power and riches, is to be in himself; not in his dwelling, or position, or external relations, but in his own essential character. That is the realm on which he is to live, if he is to live as a good man." - Henry Ward Beecher

"A tool is but the extension of a man’s hand, and a machine is but a complex tool. And he that invents a machine augments the power of a man and the well-being of mankind." - Henry Ward Beecher

"If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with my eyes, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be unable to detect them; but let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would it draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction. The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings, only the iron in God's sand is gold!" - Henry Ward Beecher

"The art op being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things." - Henry Ward Beecher

"The art of being happy is the power of extracting happiness from common things." - Henry Ward Beecher

"Men are not rational beings, as commonly supposed. A man is a bundle of instincts, feelings, sentiments, which severally seek their gratification and those which are in power get hold of the reason and use it to their own ends, and exclude all other sentiments and feelings of power." - Herbert Spencer

"The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure." -

"This is the worst pain a person can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing." - Herodotus NULL

"The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us; they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its vast numbers; to look upon our vast natural resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as a means to be converted, by the refining alchemy of education, into mental and spiritual treasures - and thus give to the world the example of a nation whose wisdom increases with prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power." - Horace Mann

"It is well when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered amongst the multitudes. Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions of truths may be propagated amongst the people ... The whole land must be watered with the streams of knowledge." - Horace Mann

"Democracy is not just a counting up of votes – it is a counting up of actions. Without those on the bottom acting out there desires for justice – as the government acts out its needs, and those with power and privilege act out theirs – the scales of democracy will be off. That is why civil disobedience is not just to be tolerated – if we are to have a truly democratic society it is a necessity." - Howard Zinn

"The unique ability of humans to imagine gives enormous power to idealism, an imagining of a better state of things not yet in existence. That power has been misused to send young men to war. But the power of idealism can also be used to attain justice, to end the massive violence of war." - Howard Zinn

"Violence is not the only form of power. Sometimes it is the least effective. Always it is the most vicious." - Howard Zinn

"Yes, we have in this country, dominated by corporate wealth and military power and two antiquated political parties, what a fearful conservative characterized as “a permanent adversarial culture” challenging the present, demanding a new future. It is a race in which we can all choose to participate, or to just watch. But we should know that our choice will help determine the outcome." - Howard Zinn

"Morality... must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is exhibited. Whence it follows that, if the law of morality and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly." - Immanuel Kant

"Synthesis in general... is the mere result of the power of imagination, a blind but indispensable function of the sul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever, but of which we are scarcely ever conscious." - Immanuel Kant

"There is in man a power of self-determination, independent of any coercion through sensuous impulses." - Immanuel Kant

"The power to question is the basis of all human progress." - Indira Gandhi, fully Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī

"Power is the by-product of understanding." - Jacob Bronowski

"Prayer is the principal means for opening oneself to the power and love of God that is already there – in the depths of reality." - James A. Pike, fully Bishop James Albert Pike

"There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them." - James Bryant Conant

"The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may; be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale." - James Bryant Conant

"Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation." - James Bryant Conant

"Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as win the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power." - James Bryant Conant

"Power intoxicates men. It is never voluntarily surrendered. It must be taken from them." - James Francis Byrne

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison

"Of all the evils to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people! No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." - James Madison

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, though from an opposite cause. Government is instituted to protect property of every sort, as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own." - James Madison

"All men having power ought to be mistrusted." - James Madison

"If we listen to our self-love, we shall estimate our lot less by; what it is than by what it is not; shall dwell upon its hindrances and be blind to its possibilities; and, comparing it only with imaginary lives, shall indulge in flattering dreams of what we should do if we had but power, and give if we had but wealth, and be if we had no temptations." - James Martineau

"There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence." - James Martineau

"It is always more difficult to fight one’s own fallings than the power of an adversary." - Jawaharlal Nehru

"After speech, silence is the greatest power in the world." - Jean Baptiste Lacordaire, fully Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

"All power is feeble unless it is united." - Jean de La Fontaine

"The power to define the situation is the ultimate power." - Jerry Rubin

"To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, singular power of self-respect." - Joan Didion

"Look underfoot. You are always nearer to the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Don't despise your own place and hour. Every place is the center of the world." - John Burroughs

"Great souls forgive not injuries till time has put their enemies within their power, that they may show forgiveness is their own." - John Dryden

"All empire is no more than power in trust." - John Dryden

"Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world – or to make it the last." -

"When power leads people towards arrogance, poetry reminds them of their limitations. When power narrows the areas of people's concern, poetry reminds them of the richness and diversity of their existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment." -

"Power, to its last particle, is power." - John Foster, fully John Watson Foster

"Knowledge is power. But knowledge without character and wisdom is nothing, or worse." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

"People are the common denominator of progress. So… no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills and the other familiar furniture of economic development. . . . But we are coming to realize . . . that there is certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first." - John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

"The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas." - John Maynard Keynes

"Death form sin now power can separate." - John Milton