Great Throughts Treasury

"I believed that, instead of the multiplicity of rules that comprise logic, I would have enough in the following four, as long as I made a firm and steadfast resolution never to fail to observe them." - René Descartes

"I thought the following four [rules] would be enough, provided that I made a firm and constant resolution not to fail even once in the observance of them. The first was never to accept anything as true if I had not evident knowledge of its being so; that is, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to embrace in my judgment only what presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it. The second, to divide each problem I examined into as many parts as was feasible, and as was requisite for its better solution. The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly way; beginning with the simplest objects, those most apt to be known, and ascending little by little, in steps as it were, to the knowledge of the most complex; and establishing an order in thought even when the objects had no natural priority one to another. And the last, to make throughout such complete enumerations and such general surveys that I might be sure of leaving nothing out. These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered." - René Descartes

"A confident expectation that no argument will be adduced that will change our opinions is very different from a resolution that none ever shall. We may print but not stereotype our opinions." - Richard Whately

"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"All life is a struggle.... Under competition the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not work, neither shall he eat." - Samuel Smiles

"Heaven helps those who help themselves is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless." - Samuel Smiles

"Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry." - Samuel Smiles

"Throughout his last half-dozen books, for example, Arthur Koestler has been conducting a campaign against his own misunderstanding of Darwinism. He hopes to find some ordering force, constraining evolution to certain directions and overriding the influence of natural selection. […] Darwinism is not the theory of capricious change that Koestler imagines. Random variation may be the raw material of change, but natural selection builds good design by rejecting most variants while accepting and accumulating the few that improve adaptation to local environments." - Stephan Jay Gould

"The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"There is a set of people whom I cannot bear—the pinks of fashionable propriety,—whose every word is precise, and whose every movement is unexceptionable, but who, though versed in all the categories of polite behaviour, have not a particle of soul or cordiality about them. We allow that their manners may be abundantly correct. There may be eloquence in every gesture, and gracefulness in every position; not a smile out of place, and not a step that would not bear the measurement of the severest scrutiny. This is all very fine: but what I want is the heart and gaiety of social intercourse; the frankness that spreads ease and animation around it; the eye that speaks affability to all, that chases timidity from every bosom, and tells every man in the company to be confident and happy. This is what I conceive to be the virtue of the text, and not the sickening formality of those who walk by rule, and would reduce the whole of human life to a wire-bound system of misery and constraint." - Thomas Chalmers

"A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor. The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky." - Thomas Hardy

"But no one came. Because no one ever does." - Thomas Hardy

"Be ever engaged, so that whenever the devil calls he may find you occupied." - Thomas Hughes

"I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives." - Thomas Jefferson

"It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain." - Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative cell. It is a body of oral messages, announcements, prophecies, promulgations, recitals, histories, songs of praise, lamentations, etc., which are meant either to be uttered or at least read aloud, or chanted, or sung, or recited in a community convoked for the purpose of a living celebration." - Thomas Merton

"The story of Jesus Christ appearing after he was dead is the story of an apparition, such as timid imaginations can always create in vision, and credulity believe. Stories of this kind had been told of the assassination of Julius Caesar." - Thomas Paine

"Time possesses nothing but the negative virtue of helping to wear itself out." - Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

"Your IQ is an illusion. You can change that number around drastically by changing what is on the tests." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

"His sickness increases from the remedies applied to cure it." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"One who speaks ill of virtuous people is definitely doomed." - Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

"May your thoughts, resolution and actions unify and become one so that 'unity' becomes possible." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"Meditate in remembrance on the One Lord; do not be in love with duality." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"Sing the Glories of God each and every day; your afflictions shall be dispelled, and you shall be saved, my humble friend." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"He who can suppress a moment's anger may prevent a day of sorrow" - Tryon Edwards

"If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such." - William Godwin

"Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious." - William James

"We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the" - William James

"There are very few women in society whose virtue outlasts their beauty." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this earth to do?" - Elizabeth Gilbert

"The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be." - Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

"The one experience that he had never had he was not going to spoil now. He probably would. You spoiled everything. But perhaps he wouldn't" - Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

"One good yardstick as to whether a person might be the right one for you is this: in her presence, do you think your noblest thoughts, do you aspire to your finest deeds, do you wish you were better than you are?" - Ezra Taft Benson