Great Throughts Treasury

"The most terrible of all things is terror." - William Rounseville Alger

"There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are very few new ideas about." - W. Somerset Maugham, fully William Somerset Maugham

"Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness." - André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog

"I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive... But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"All political movements are like this — we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility." - Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler

"Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion. " - Heinrich Heine

"The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea. " - Jean-Luc Godard

"The truth is that there is no terror untempered by some great moral idea." - Jean-Luc Godard

"A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line...To snatch in a moment of courage, from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life is only the beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued fragment before all eyes and in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form, and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth -- disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their own powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes toward a great avenger and liberator who someday will come and accomplish his mission." - Leon Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein

"Ah, what without a heaven would be even love! A perpetual terror of the separation that must one day come. " - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

"For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true." - Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision." - Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

"Extreme terror gives us back the gestures of our childhood. " - Malcolm de Chazal

"If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror - virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

"It has been said that terror is the principle of despotic government. Does your government therefore resemble despotism? Yes, as the sword that gleams in the hands of the heroes of liberty resembles that with which the henchmen of tyranny are armed ... The government of the revolution is liberty's despotism against tyranny. Is force made only to protect crime." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

"US multilateral corporations (along with the firms of other advanced capitalistic nations) control most of the wealth, labor, and markets of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This control does much to maldevelop the weaker nations in ways that are severely detrimental to the life chances of the common people of the Third World. The existing class structure of the Third World, so suitable to capital accumulation, must be protected from popular resistance. Through the generous application of force and terror and by cultural and political domination, the imperialist nation directly -- or through a client-state apparatus -- maintains "stability" and prevents changes in the class structure of other nations." - Michael Parenti

"The roots of such fears which choke love like weeds need repeated examination. Partly they spring from failures in loving within the family and within society; partly, also, from horror of the body and its desires which the Church has done much to encourage. The exaggerated emphasis on the sinfulness of sexual intercourse has led many sensitive people to a terror of any situation where they might lose control. This in turn leads in some cases to a fear of the opposite sex, or a dislike of even the briefest and most casual physical contact. Yet to be comforted, to be assured that we are valuable and important, we need to be touched. We need our hands to be shaken, our cheeks to be kissed, our shoulders to be embraced, with the quick sympathy and affection of friendship or of kinship." - Monica Furlong

"In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man’s estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Sometimes animals may suffer more because of their more limited understanding. If, for instance, we are taking prisoners in wartime we can explain to them that although they must submit to capture, search, and confinement, they will not otherwise be harmed and will be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture wild animals, however, we cannot explain that we are not threatening their lives. A wild animal cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to kill; the one causes as much terror as the other. " - Peter Singer

"On pillow after pillow lies The wild white hair and staring eyes; Jaws stand open; necks are stretched With every tendon sharply sketched; A bearded mouth talks silently To someone no one else can see. Sixty years ago they smiled At lover, husband, first-born child. Smiles are for youth. For old age come Death's terror and delirium. " - Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin

"Light was the symbol I tried to give them...The Cross was the symbol they adopted. The pain of self-sacrifice was obvious to them. The subjective reward--incomprehensible. Thus they changed it all. I told them of many mansions. They chose this mansion or that--scoured each other off the earth, to set one heaven in place of the heaven of those they defeated. Holy wars! Is such a thing conceivable to God as a holy war? Alas. The words--the images--the effort is still uncomprehended. I said Light. I said truth. I said Freedom. I meant enlightenment. Yet nearly every church that uses my name is a wall against light and a rampart against enlightenment, using fear, not love, to chain the generations in terror and pain and ignorance . . . And now--this is called civilization, and in my name, also!" - Philip Wylie, fully Philip Gordon Wylie

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi

"If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange... they all consider death a great evil... and the brave among them face death, when they do, for fear of greater evils... therefore, it is fear and terror that make all men brave, except for philosophers. yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice...what of the moderate among them? is their experience not similar?... they master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others... I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that they only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom. " - Plato NULL

"Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure and are awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Each single angel is terrifying." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke

"I leave to others the business of causing anxiety and terror and mixing everything up." - René Margritte, fully René François Ghislain Magritte

"I don't really remember the day when I stood behind my camera with Henry Kissinger on the other side. I am sure he doesn't remember it either. But this photograph is here now to prove that no amount of kindness on my part could make this photograph mean exactly what he.. or even I.. wanted it to mean. It's a reminder of the wonder and terror that is a photograph." - Richard Avedon

"Let it never be forgotten that it is not by means of war that states are rendered fit for the enjoyment of constitutional freedom; on the contrary, whilst terror and bloodshed reign in the land, involving men's minds in the extremities of hopes and fears, there can be no process of thought, no education going on, by which alone can a people be prepared for the enjoyment of rational liberty." - Richard Cobden

"Maybe man is nothing in particular,' Cross said gropingly. 'Maybe that's the terror of it. Man may be just anything at all. And maybe man deep down suspects this, really knows this, kind of dreams that it is true; but at the same time he does not want really to know it? May not human life on this earth be a kind of frozen fear of man at what he could possibly be? And every move he makes might not these moves be just to hide this awful fact? To twist it into something which he feels would make him rest and breathe a little easier? What man is is perhaps too much to be borne by man..." - Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

"As for an afterlife, there has been a general decline in the general acceptance of it as a certainty, and though a few rationalists may be pleased, to many people this has added a new terror to death. We are reluctant, in the main, to consider the disappearance of ourselves and consequently all we feel and know. Every man's death is, literally, the end of a world if he dies without hope. We have exchanged Gone Elsewhere for Gone Nowhere." - Robertson Davies

"A VALE OF TEARS - A vale there is, enwrapt with dreadful shades, Which thick of mourning pines shrouds from the sun, Where hanging cliffs yield short and dumpish glades, And snowy flood with broken streams doth run. Where eye-room is from rock to cloudy sky, From thence to dales with stony ruins strew'd, Then to the crushèd water's frothy fry, Which tumbleth from the tops where snow is thaw'd. Where ears of other sound can have no choice, But various blust'ring of the stubborn wind In trees, in caves, in straits with divers noise; Which now doth hiss, now howl, now roar by kind. Where waters wrestle with encount'ring stones, That break their streams, and turn them into foam, The hollow clouds full fraught with thund'ring groans, With hideous thumps discharge their pregnant womb. And in the horror of this fearful quire Consists the music of this doleful place; All pleasant birds from thence their tunes retire, Where none but heavy notes have any grace. Resort there is of none but pilgrim wights, That pass with trembling foot and panting heart; With terror cast in cold and shivering frights, They judge the place to terror framed by art. Yet nature's work it is, of art untouch'd, So strait indeed, so vast unto the eye, With such disorder'd order strangely couch'd, And with such pleasing horror low and high, That who it views must needs remain aghast, Much at the work, more at the Maker's might; And muse how nature such a plot could cast Where nothing seemeth wrong, yet nothing right. A place for mated mindes, an only bower Where everything do soothe a dumpish mood; Earth lies forlorn, the cloudy sky doth lower, The wind here weeps, here sighs, here cries aloud. The struggling flood between the marble groans, Then roaring beats upon the craggy sides; A little off, amidst the pebble stones, With bubbling streams and purling noise it glides. The pines thick set, high grown and ever green, Still clothe the place with sad and mourning veil; Here gaping cliff, there mossy plain is seen, Here hope doth spring, and there again doth quail. Huge massy stones that hang by tickle stays, Still threaten fall, and seem to hang in fear; Some wither'd trees, ashamed of their decays, Bereft of green are forced gray coats to wear. Here crystal springs crept out of secret vein, Straight find some envious hole that hides their grace; Here searèd tufts lament the want of rain, There thunder-wrack gives terror to the place. All pangs and heavy passions here may find A thousand motives suiting to their griefs, To feed the sorrows of their troubled mind, And chase away dame Pleasure's vain reliefs. To plaining thoughts this vale a rest may be, To which from worldly joys they may retire; Where sorrow springs from water, stone and tree; Where everything with mourners doth conspire. Sit here, my soul, main streams of tears afloat, Here all thy sinful foils alone recount; Of solemn tunes make thou the doleful note, That, by thy ditties, dolour may amount. When echo shall repeat thy painful cries, Think that the very stones thy sins bewray, And now accuse thee with their sad replies, As heaven and earth shall in the latter day. Let former faults be fuel of thy fire, For grief in limbeck of thy heart to still Thy pensive thoughts and dumps of thy desire, And vapour tears up to thy eyes at will. Let tears to tunes, and pains to plaints be press'd, And let this be the burden of thy song,— Come, deep remorse, possess my sinful breast; Delights, adieu! I harbour'd you too long. " - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

"My thoughts astounded asked me why Towards the whirling wheels on high In ecstasy I rush and fly. The living God is my desire, It carries me on wings of fire, Body and soul to Him aspire. God is at once my joy and fate, This yearning me He did create, At thought of Him I palpitate. Shall song with all its loveliness Submerge my soul with happiness Before the God of Gods it bless?" - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"I billeted a strong force overnight in a citadel laid waste in former days by other generals. There we slept upon its back and flanks, while under us its landlords slept. And I said to my heart: Where are the many people who once lived here? Where are the builders and vandals, the rulers and paupers, the slaves and masters? Where are the begetters and the bereaved, the fathers and the sons, the mourners and the bridegrooms? And where are the many people born after the others had died, in days gone by, after other days and years? Once they lodged upon the earth; now they are lodged within it. They passed from their palaces to the grave, from pleasant courts to dust." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah

"Behold the cold days have already passed And the season of winter’s rains is buried. The young turtle-doves are seen in our land; They call to one another from the tips of branches. Therefore, my companions, keep the covenant Of friendship make haste and do not defy me. Come to my garden and pluck The roses whose perfume is like pure myrrh. And by the blossoms and gathering of swallows Who sing of the good times, drink ye Wine in measures like the tears I shed over parting With friends and as red as the faces of blushing lovers." - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah

"This is the spot where I will lie When life has had enough of me, These are the grasses that will blow Above me like a living sea. These gay old lilies will not shrink To draw their life from death of mine, And I will give my body's fire To make blue flowers on this vine. "O Soul," I said, "have you no tears? Was not the body dear to you?" I heard my soul say carelessly, "The myrtle flowers will grow more blue. " - Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger

"What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, That my songs do not show me at all? For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire, I am an answer, they are only a call. " - Sara Teasdale, born Sara Trevor Teasdale, aka Sara Teasdale Filsinger

"I was drivin' my two-mule waggin, With a lot o' truck for sale, Towards Macon, to git some baggin' (Which my cotton was ready to bale), And I come to a place on the side o' the pike Whar a peert little winter branch jest had throw'd The sand in a kind of a sand-bar like, And I seed, a leetle ways up the road, A man squattin' down, like a big bull-toad, On the ground, a-figgerin' thar in the sand With his finger, and motionin' with his hand, And he looked like Ellick Garry. And as I driv up, I heerd him bleat To hisself, like a lamb: "Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin' -- and none to carry?" And Ellick's bull-cart was standin' A cross-wise of the way, And the little bull was a-expandin', Hisself on a wisp of hay. But Ellick he sat with his head bent down, A-studyin' and musin' powerfully, And his forrud was creased with a turrible frown, And he was a-wurken' appearently A 'rethmetic sum that wouldn't gee, Fur he kep' on figgerin' away in the sand With his finger, and motionin' with his hand, And I seed it WAS Ellick Garry. And agin I heard him softly bleat To hisself, like a lamb: "Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin' -- and none to carry!" I woa'd my mules mighty easy (Ellick's back was towards the road And the wind hit was sorter breezy) And I got down off'n my load, And I crep' up close to Ellick's back, And I heerd him a-talkin' softly, thus: "Them figgers is got me under the hack. I caint see how to git out'n the muss, Except to jest nat'ally fail and bus'! My crap-leen calls for nine hundred and more. My counts o' sales is eight hundred and four, Of cotton for Ellick Garry. Thar's eight, ought, four, jest like on a slate: Here's nine and two oughts -- Hauh? nine from eight Leaves nuthin' -- and none to carry. "Them crap-leens, oh, them crap-leens! I giv one to Pardman and Sharks. Hit gobbled me up like snap-beans In a patch full o' old fiel'-larks. But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice, And I hauled my cotton to Jammel and Cones. But shuh! 'fore I even had settled my price They tuck affidavy without no bones And levelled upon me fur all ther loans To the 'mount of sum nine hundred dollars or more, And sold me out clean for eight hundred and four, As sure as I'm Ellick Garry! And thar it is down all squar and straight, But I can't make it gee, fur nine from eight Leaves nuthin' -- and none to carry." Then I says "Hello, here, Garry! However you star' and frown Thare's somethin' fur YOU to carry, Fur you've worked it upside down!" Then he riz and walked to his little bull-cart, And made like he neither had seen nor heerd Nor knowed that I knowed of his raskilly part, And he tried to look as if HE wa'nt feared, And gathered his lines like he never keered, And he driv down the road 'bout a quarter or so, And then looked around, and I hollered "Hello, Look here, Mister Ellick Garry! You may git up soon and lie down late, But you'll always find that nine from eight Leaves nuthin' -- and none to carry." - Sidney Lanier

"Rose-Morals - I. -- Red. Would that my songs might be What roses make by day and night -- Distillments of my clod of misery Into delight. Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast As yon red rose, and dare the day, All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest? Say yea -- say yea! Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye; The wind is up; so; drift away. That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly, I strive, I pray. II. -- White. Soul, get thee to the heart Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there -- There breathe the meditations of thine art Suffused with prayer. Of spirit grave yet light, How fervent fragrances uprise Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white Virginities! Mulched with unsavory death, Grow, Soul! unto such white estate, That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath, Thy work, thy fate." - Sidney Lanier

"What each individual really needs can only be known by himself; what he should contribute he can determine through his insight into the situation as a whole." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

"One good quote is worth a book." - Rudyard Kipling

"It is on supply that war is made." - S. L. A. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall

"May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honor which is really honor, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!" - Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

"The purpose of food is to relieve hunger and thirst, not to minister to caprice and luxury." - Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

"A mind enclosed in language is in prison." - Simone Weil

"A woman's dream of taking it away, like a tiger cub to take away." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"Aye, indeed! Hast been brought up at the Abbey then. I could read it from thy reddened cheek and downcast eye, Hast learned from the monks, I trow, to fear a woman as thou wouldst a lazar-house. Out upon them! that they should dishonor their own mothers by such teaching. A pretty world it would be with all the women out of it." - Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

"Whatever a woman's reason may say, her feelings tell her the truth." - Stefan Zweig

"Moreover, I believe that the natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few... there are many people who will go with us in conserving the resources only if they are to be allowed to exploit them for their benefit. That is one of the fundamental reasons why the special interests should be driven out of politics. Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue, for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part." - Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

"For the passions of men, which asunder are moderate, as the heat of one brand, in assembly are like many brands that enflame one another, (especially when they blow one another with orations) to the setting of the commonwealth on fire, under pretense of counseling it." - Thomas Hobbes