Great Throughts Treasury

"The most enduring skill you can bring to the workplace is also one of the most important skills you always had to bring to reporting -- and that is the ability to learn how to learn." - Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

"I see great, and, to my understanding, unconquerable difficulties. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see them completely removed." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

"It is an acknowledged truth in philosophy that a just theory will always be confirmed by experiment." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

"The ordeal of virtue is to resist all temptation to evil." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

"When Hume and Adam Smith prophesied that a little increase of national debt beyond the then amount of it, would probably occasion bankruptcy; the main cause of their error was the natural one, of not being able to see the vast increase of productive power to which the nation would subsequently obtain." - Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

"It is... particularly true of constitutional government that its atmosphere is opinion... It does not remain fixed in any unchanging form, but grows with the growth and is altered with the change of the nation's needs and purposes." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason and a gift of cooperation." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"The individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction of serviceability to the life process. When it is attempted to assimilate systematic waste or futility, as an end in life, into this organic complex, there presently supervenes a revulsion." - Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen

"The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learned before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered." - Thucydides NULL

"Most centrist Democrats... try to distance themselves from controversies that recall the 1960s. There are journalistic centrists as well, who avoid hard truths for the sake of acceptance and legitimacy." - Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden

"Ideas are malleable and unstable; they not only can be misused, they invite misuse---and the better the idea the more volatile it is. That's because only the better ideas turn into dogma, and it is by this process whereby a fresh, stimulating, humanly helpful idea is changed into robot dogma that is deadly. The problem starts at the secondary level, not with the originator or developer of the idea, but with the people who are attracted to it, until the last nail breaks, and who invariably lack the overview, flexibility, imagination, and, most importantly, sense of humor to maintain it in the spirit in which it was hatched. Ideas are made by masters, dogmas by disciples, and the Buddha is always killed on the road." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"I'm looking for the novelists whose writing is an extension of their intellect rather than an extension of their neurosis." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"Like chip dip with a short shelf life, the imported Scandinavian sunshine had commenced to degenerate, reverting to the cod paste from which it was synthesized. Scud blew by close to the surface of the sound like dank puffballs of bacterial fuss, and the men could almost taste mildew in the air. The atmosphere was leaden and thin simultaneously, as if composed of some new element that defied known laws of atomic weight and could be properly breathed only by lifelong residents of the Pacific Northwest. Feathery and innocuous on one hand, sodden and ill-willed on the other, it was the meterorological equivalent of Pat Boone sing heavy metal." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can’t be happy until they’ve graduated, servicemen who can’t be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can’t be happy until they’ve found a mate, workers who can’t be happy until they’ve retired, adolescents who aren’t happy until they’re grown, ill people who aren’t happy until they’re well, failures who aren’t happy until they succeed, restless who can’t wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes." - Daniel Gilbert, fully Daniel Todd Gilbert, aka Professor Happiness

"The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind." - William Godwin

"What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?" - William Godwin

"No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep." - William James

"One was there who left all his friends behind; who going inland ever more and more, and being left quite alone, at last did find a lonely valley sheltered from the wind, wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, a long-deserted ruined castle stood." - William Morris

"Fancy sets the value on the gifts of fortune." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"There are but very few men clever enough to know all the mischief they do." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"There are ways which lead to everything, and if we have sufficient will we should always have sufficient means." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

"Out alas! she's cold, Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated. Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field." - William Shakespeare

"We have overdeveloped the individualism that arose in a pioneer country. We are destined to become more co-operative, more collectivistic, and to find in this direction still greater opportunity for the individual, not so much restricted and defeated by competition but enlarged and enhanced by the support of a common will. It may be that the problem of material goods--of the necessary but yet external goods of food, clothing, shelter, and money-is about to be solved through new discoveries and developments, with the energies of men left freer than they have ever been to cultivate on higher levels the sharable goods of life, such as love and wisdom. These values grow with use and multiply by being freely shared." - Edward Scribner Ames

"It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion." - Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

"Never before had China seen a religion so rich in imagery, so beautiful and captivating in ritualism and so bold in cosmological and metaphysical speculations. Like a poor beggar suddenly halting before a magnificent storehouse of precious stones of dazzling brilliancy and splendor, China was overwhelmed, baffled and overjoyed. She begged and borrowed freely from this munificent giver. The first borrowings were chiefly from the religious life of India, in which China's indebtedness to India can never be fully told." - Hu Shih, or Hú Shì

"Mirth is a Proteus, changing its shape and manner with the thousand diversities of individual character, from the most superfluous gayety to the deepest, moat earnest humor." - Edwin Percy Whipple

"Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars." - Edwin Percy Whipple

"When thou journeyest into the shadows, take not sweetmeats with thee, but a seed of corn and a bottle of tears and wine; that thou mayst have a garden in the land whither thou go eat." - Egyptian Proverbs

"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

"If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian...I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Silence and solitude are universally recognized spiritual practices, and there are good reasons for this. Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies from spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby--I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to--I just don't care." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"But I have also seen another way to deal with a fearful change or a painful loss. I call this other way the Phoenix Process — named for the mythical phoenix bird who remains awake through the fires of change, rises from the ashes of death, and is reborn into his most vibrant and enlightened self." - Elizabeth Lesser

"The idea of feminine authority is so deeply embedded in the human subconscious that even after all these centuries of father-right the young child instinctively regards the mother as the supreme authority. He looks upon the father as equal with himself, equally subject to the woman's rule. Children have to be taught to love, honor, and respect the father, a task usually assumed by the mother." - Elizabeth Gould Davis

"It is because of speech that men give the illusion of being free. By speaking, they deceive themselves, as they deceive others: because they say what they are going to do, who could suspect they are not masters of their actions?" - Emil M. Cioran

"A god of kindness would be charitable to all. Your god of wrath and punishment is but a monstrous phantasy... It is not necessary that one should humble oneself to deserve assistance, it is sufficient that one should suffer." - Emile Zola

"In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end." - Emile Zola

"Well then! it was the end; his ruin was complete. Even if he mended the cables and lit the fires, where would he find men? Another fortnight's strike and he would be bankrupt. And in this certainty of disaster he no longer felt any hatred of the Montsou bandits; he felt that all had a hand in it, that it was a general agelong fault. They were brutes, no doubt, but brutes who could not read, and who were dying of hunger." - Emile Zola

"And wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"I, wretched creature finally had to lower my flag, after a long struggle until dark with gloom and loneliness." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations." - Emma Goldman

"Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it. The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven." - Emma Goldman

"It is characteristic of theistic "tolerance" that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe." - Emma Goldman

"Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia." - Emma Goldman

"The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy." - Emma Goldman

"I question the value of name tags as an aid to future identification. I have approached too many people who have spent the entire evening talking to my left bosom. I always have the insane desire to name the other one." - Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

"And so, the question for the science of mental health must be­come an absolutely new and revolutionary one, yet one that re­flects the essence of the human condition: On what level of illusion does one live? We will see the import of this at the close of this chapter, but right now we must remind ourselves that when we talk about the need for illusion we are not being cynical. True, there is a great deal of falseness and self-deception in the cultural causa-sui project, but there is also the necessity of this project. Man needs a "second" world, a world of humanly created meaning, a new reality that he can live, dramatize, nourish himself in. "Illusion" means creative play at its highest level. Cultural illusion is a necessary ideology of self-justification, a heroic dimension that is life itself to the symbolic animal. To lose the security of heroic cultural illusion is to die—that is what "deculturation" of primitives means and what it does. It kills them or reduces them to the animal level of chronic fighting and fornication. Life becomes possible only in a continual alcoholic stupor. Many of the older American Indians were relieved when the Big Chiefs in Ottawa and Washington took control and prevented them from warring and feuding. It was a relief from the constant anxiety of death for their loved ones, if not for themselves. But they also knew, with a heavy heart, that this eclipse of their traditional hero-systems at the same time left them as good as dead." - Ernest Becker

"Ecological devastation is the excrement, so to speak, of man's power worship." - Ernest Becker

"Mother nature is a brutal bitch, red in tooth and claw, who destroys what she creates." - Ernest Becker