Great Throughts Treasury

"The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

"The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame." - W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

"In Europe and in America, people are now more interested in the cost of quality and in systems of quality-audit. But in Japan, we are keeping very strong interest to improve quality by use of methods which you started....when we improve quality we also improve productivity, just as you told us in 1950 would happen." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming

"When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming

"Education consists in co-operating with what is already inside a child's mind. A good teacher will nearly always be able to make his points simply by asking a class questions, by making the class realize clearly what they already know "at the back of their minds." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"I have for a long time believed that the thought processes of very young children closely resembled the thought processes of genius." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"It is well known that there exists a mathematical theory of musical sounds. Very few people know that music has made a contribution to mathematics. In fact a suggestion made by a musician led to a total revolution in the way mathematicians approach their subject. No doubt, mathematicians would have made this step forward sooner or later if the musician had not given this hint, but as a matter of historical record, that was how it happened." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"The commonest complaint from the abler pupils is that if they finish a set of exercises ahead of the rest of the class they are simply given more of the same kind, which they find very boring." - W. W. Sawyer, fully Walter Warwick Sawyer

"There is no mightier weapon than indifference, you will never conquer it." - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, born Vladimir Jabotinsky

"Every question “runs in a vicious circle” because political life as a whole is an endless chain consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art of politics lies in finding and taking as firm a grip as we can of the link that is least likely to be struck from our hands, the one that is most important at the given moment, the one that most of all guarantees its possessor the possession of the whole chain." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"It is essential to grasp the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognizance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations — all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"The so-called Great Powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole number of small and weak nations. And the imperialist war is a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty." - Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

"My angel, oh my angel, perhaps our whole earthly existence is now but a pun to you, or a grotesque rhyme, something like dental and transcendental (remember?), and the true meaning of reality, of that piercing term, purged of all our strange, dreamy, masquerade interpretations, now sounds so pure and sweet that you, angel, find it amusing that we could have taken the dream so seriously (although you and I did have an inkling of why everything disintegrated at one furtive touch-- words, conventions of everyday life, systems, persons-- so, you know, I think laughter is some chance little ape of truth astray in our world." - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

"I am ignorant of how I was formed and how I was born. Through a quarter of my lifetime I was absolutely ignorant of the reasons for everything I saw and heard and felt, and was merely a parrot prompted by other parrots... When I sought to advance along that infinite course, I could neither find one single footpath or fully discover one single object, and from the upward leap I made to contemplate eternity I fell back into the abyss of my ignorance." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"It is a serious question among them whether they [Africans] are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"It was decided by the University of Coimbre that the sight of several persons being slowly burned in great ceremony is an infallible secret for preventing earthquakes." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

"All our emotions and thoughts are conditioned reflexes, reactions." - Vimala Thakar

"Even though our very survival is in question, we tend to look at the crisis superficially, emotionally, sentimentally. We have tried in subtle ways to absolve ourselves of any deep responsibility for the condition of the human family. We perceive ourselves, or our small identity groups, as truly sincere and peace-loving, and we ascribe to outsiders, to those apart, to power-hungry villains, responsibility for aggression and wars." - Vimala Thakar

"People have generally followed one or the other of these two conventional approaches: religious groups concerned with inner growth and inner revolution, and social activist groups concerned with social service. Traditionally we have created boundaries, and exploration beyond our home territories has been only superficial. The social activists have staked out their territory, the outer life—the socioeconomic, political structures—and the spiritual people have staked out theirs—the inner world of higher dimensions of consciousness, transcendental experiences, and meditation. The two groups, throughout history, have been contemptuous of each other. The social activists consider the spiritual inquirers to be self-indulgent, and the inquirers consider the activists to be caught in a race of activity, denying the essence of living. Traditional spiritual leaders have divided life into worldly and spiritual, and have insisted that the world is illusion. They said, “This world is maya, is an illusion. So whatever action you take should be in relation to the absolute truth and not in relation to maya.” Thus a religious person sitting in meditation for ten hours a day need not mind the tyranny or the exploitation or the cruelties surrounding him. He would say, “That’s not my responsibility. It’s God’s responsibility. God has created the world. He or She will take care of it.”" - Vimala Thakar

"Apart from that, both she and I have grief enough and trouble enough, but as for regrets — neither of us have any. Look here — I believe without question, or have the certain knowledge, that she loves me. I believe without question, or have the certain knowledge, that I love her. It has been sincerely meant. But has it also been foolish, etc? Perhaps, if you like — but aren't the wise ones, those who never do anything foolish, even more foolish in my eyes than I am in theirs?" - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"I am always hoping to make a discovery here, to express the feelings of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their minglings and their oppositions, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"I have often neglected my appearance. I admit it, and I also admit that it is shocking. But look here, lack of money and poverty have something to do with it too, as well as a profound disillusionment, and besides, it is sometimes a good way of ensuring the solitude you need, of concentrating more or less on whatever study you are immersed in." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"One must work and dare if one really wants to live." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such- be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, t" - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting." - Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

"I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down." - Virgil Thomson

"Glamour is all about transcending this world and getting to an idealized, perfect place." - Virginia Postrel

"All meaning is self-created." - Virginia Satir

"Like and like and like--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing?" - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"No, on the man's chest tumulutoso, a passion stronger than impose their belief on others, nothing can take the root of your anger and fill such as knowing that one despises what he worships. [...] It is not the love of truth, but desire to prevail that pits one neighborhood to another neighborhood and makes a parish premedite ruin another parish. Everyone prefers peace of mind and the other holding the triumph of truth and the apotheosis of virtue." - Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

"Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL

"Hearken with your ears to these best counsels, reflect upon them with illumined judgment. Let each one choose his creed with that freedom of choice each must have at great events." - Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL

"From one learn all." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"Not surpassing in crafty measures, but in the power of arms." - Virgil, also Vergil, fully Publius Vergilius Maro NULL

"Little by little, step by step, see what happens to you as you deliberately abandon your rage and hostility." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"Quit thinking that you must halt before the barrier of inner negativity. You need not. You can crash through...whatever we see a negative state; that is where we can destroy it." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"The man who needs to be accepted by others still lives under several wrong impressions. He still thinks there is value in self-pleasing human associations and in reassuring words which come from people who appear self-assured. He still thinks he can escape the agony of his own emptiness by filling it with the neurotic noise of society. The awakened man has no attachment to the opposite terms of acceptance and rejection. Living above mere words, he comes and goes among people in a quiet contentment which is unknown by those who still seek acceptance." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

"One is not superior merely because one sees the world in an odious light." - François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand

"To live is to understand. To live is to smile at the present, to look toward posterity over the wall." - Victor Hugo

"What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think. "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these things are things that cannot inspire envy." - Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

"People who pollute our mind with their impure and sinful thoughts must be kept in check." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"The Lord is the Lover of His devotees; He inspires them to perform devotional worship. True devotional worship consists of eliminating selfishness and conceit from within." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"This (man) shall live and shall not die, we rouse this man (to life). I make for him a remedy, O death, do not slay the man." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"You have wasted the precious jewel of this human life; you do not know the Way of the Lord of the Universe." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like—what's going on—what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. The truth against the world!—Yes. Certainly. Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin