Great Throughts Treasury

"Are you willing to think? Consider carefully, for the answer to that question will largely determine your success or failure in life. If you develop your judgment, use it. Exercise your power of judgment as often as you can, for the first rule of good judgment is practice. The functions of your mind, no less than the muscles of your body, receive their strength through repeated use." - John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson

"People think of the Golden Rule as something mild and innocuous, like a baby lamb. But when they suffer an infringement of it, they think they've been mauled by a panther." -

"It is a good rule to face difficulties at the time they arise and not allow them to increase unacknowledged." - Edward W. Ziegler

"Here is a rule to remember in the future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, “This is a misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune.”" -

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." -

"Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always try to be a little kinder than is necessary?" -

"[Boren’s Rule] Nothing is impossible until it is sent to a committee." - James H. Boren

"If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." - Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin

"There is no exception to the rule that every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, that if not destroyed, the earth would soon be covered by the progeny of a single pair." - Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin

"A basic rule of organization is to build the fewest possible management levels and forge the shortest possible chain of command." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive… The unexpected is usually not received at all. It is not seen or heard, but ignored. Or it is misunderstood." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"Evolution, with the advent of conscious man, ceases to rule by outer law; it becomes the inner law of man’s being and can only advance through his volition… Man must fight to prepare the advent of the spiritual being he is destined to become." - L. Francis Edmunds

"The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts." - Paul Ehrlich, fully Paul Ralph Ehrlich

"Little by little the barrier grows, and “religion” becomes a rule of life, not life itself." - Michael Fairless, pseudomymn for Margaret Fairless Barber

"Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave, only one great fact with respect to which, since it is unique, there can be no generalizations, only one safe rule for the historian: that they should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen." - H.A.L. Fisher, fully Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher

"Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed." - Owen Flanagan

"The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and that we shall always see Truth in fragments and from different angles of vision." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"No man is obliged to conform to any rule of conduct farther than the rule is consistent with justice." - William Godwin

"The trouble with military rule is that every colonel or general is soon full of ambition. The navy takes over today and the army tomorrow." - Yakuba Gowon, fully General Yakubu "Jack" Dan-Yumma Gowon

"To heal quickly, avoid negative influences. There are negative people and influences in our lives. Simple rule: will this person make me feel better. Don’t feel guilty for protecting yourself." - Allan J Hamilton

"To see the world as being ruled by a divine love which sets infinite value upon each individual and includes all men in its scope, and yet to live as though the world were a realm of chance in which each must fight for his own interests against the rest, argues a very dim and wavering vision of God’s rule." - John Hick, fully John Harwood Hick

"It is desirable for a ruler that no man should suffer from cold and hunger under his rule. Man cannot maintain his standard of morals when he has no ordinary means of living." - Kenkō Hōshi, Buddhist name of Urabe Kaneyoshi

"By accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love how may rule the world forever." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well-advised." - Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

"Man, a being embued with reason, cannot on that very account live altogether at random; he is obliged in some sense to live on principle, to live by rule, to profess a view of life, to have an aim, to set up a standard." - John Henry Newman, aka Cardinal Newman and Blessed John Henry Newman

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"The heresy of one age is the orthodox belief and “only infallible rule” of the next." - Theodore Parker

"Revolution is a universal rule of evolution. Revolution is a universal principle of the world. Revolution is the essence of the struggle for survival or destruction in a time of transition… Revolution turns slaves into masters." - Zou Rong

"When you rule your mind you rule your world. When you choose your thoughts you choose results." - Imelda Octavia Shanklin

"The rule in religious matters is that understanding proceeds through living what one is trying to understand." -

"The literary and martial arts are, it is unnecessary to say, to be practiced always. The ancient rule declares that letters are the left hand and militarism the right. Neither must be neglected." - Hōjō Sōun

"When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to god is a precept to man." - Jeremy Taylor

"Full, rich and abounding health is the normal and the natural condition of life. Anything else is an abnormal condition, and abnormal conditions as a rule come through perversions. God never created sickness, suffering and disease; they are man’s own creations. They come through his violating laws under which he lives. So used are we to seeing them that we come gradually, if not to think of them as natural, then to look on them as a matter of course." - Ralph Waldo Trine

"“Rule of Conduct.” Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." - John Wesley

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule, the majority are wrong, the minority are right." -

"What makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our national distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have led us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations." - Al Gore, Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr.,

"There is but one rule of conduct for a man - to do the right thing. The cost may be dear in money, in friends, in influence, in labor, in a prolonged and painful sacrifice, but the cost not to do right is far more dear: You pay in the integrity of your manhood, in your honor, in strength of character; and, for a timely gain, you barter the infinite." - Archer G. Jones

"The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion." -

"Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only for wallowing in." -

"Insanity in individuals is rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." -

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, and undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule which is little known and less fixed?" - Alexander Hamilton

"A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view." - Alfred Adler

"The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot postpone its life until you have sharpened it. Whatever interest attaches to your subject-matter must be evoked here and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exercised here and now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited here and now. That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The worship of God is not a rule of safety - it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Evil is the brute motive force of fragmentary purpose, disregarding the eternal vision. Evil is overruling, retarding, hurting. The power of God is the worship He inspires. The worship of God is not a rule of safety – it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The worship of God is not a rule of safety - it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The worship of God is not a rule of safety – it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable." - Alfred North Whitehead

"The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity." - Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger

"We may divide thinkers into those who think for themselves, and those who think through others. The latter are the rule, and the former the exception. The first are original thinkers in a double sense, and egotists in the noblest meaning of the world. It is from them only that the world learns wisdom. For only the light which we have kindled in ourselves can illuminate others." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"The human mind turned downwards takes cognizance of the world reported to it by the senses; turned upwards it receives intuitional knowledge and directions from pure intelligence, which is its source and essence... The mind finds itself not merely cognizing and arranging the world reported by the senses but striving to rule it and in fact ruled by it. This is a cruel paradox, for by desiring one thing and fearing another the pseudo-self or ego subordinates itself to the senses and the world they report. Thus it comes to be torn between conflicting passions and subject to the tyranny of events." - Arthur W Osborn