100 BEST BOOKS REVISITED: QUOTATIONS PAGE - READ QUOTES FROM THE BEST BOOKS.

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." Confucius.

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance." Confucius

"Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous." Confucius

William Graham Sumner from "Folkways"

"Every art is born out of the intelligence of its age." (p.132)

"The Greeks and Romans regarded all labor for gain as degrading. The Greeks seem to have reached this opinion through a great esteem for intellectual pursuits, which they thought means of cultivation.... Occupations pursued for gain were thought to have an effect opposite from cultivation." (p. 160)

"It would be very difficult indeed to mention any time when there were no rich men and still harder to mention a time when the power of wealth was not admired and envied and given its sway." (p.162)

"The popular notion is that nobles have always owned land. The truth is that men who have acquired wealth have bought land and got themselves ennobled." (p. 165)

"There is no class which can be trusted to rule society with due justice to all, not abusing its power for its own interests. The task of constitutional government is to devise institutions which shall come into play at the critical periods to prevent the abusive control of the powers of a state by the controlling classes in it." (p.169)

"It is the supreme test of a system of government whether its machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertaking of cliques formed on special interests and saving the public from the raids of plunderers." (p.170)

"The most civilized peoples also maintain, by virtue of their superior position in the arts of life, that they have attained to higher and better judgments and that they may judge the customs of others from their standpoint. For three of four centuries they have called their own customs "Christian" and have thus claimed for them a religious authority and sanction which they do not possess by any connection with the principles of Christianity." (p. 418)

Sir James Frazer from "The Golden Bough"

"No sacrifice is wholly useless which proves that there are men who prefer honor to life." (p. 277)

"Civilization is only possible through the active co-operation of the citizens and their willingness to subordinate their private interests to the common good." (p. 357)

"The world cannot live at the level of its great men." (p.362)

"The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice." (p. 477)

"Religion, regarded as an explanation of nature, is displaced by science." (p. 712)

"The hope of progress- moral and intellectual as well as material- in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of sceintific discovery is a wrong to humanity." (p. 712)

From "Wisdom of the Chinese"

Confucius

"The higher type of man seeks all that he wants in himself; the inferior man seeks all that he wants from others." (Analects)

"He who requires much from himself and little from others will be secure from hatred." (Analects)

"The real fault is to have faults and not try to amend them." (Analects)

"Only two classes of men never change: the wisest of the wise and the dullest of the dull." (Analects)

"Where there is truth, there is intelligence; where there is intelligence, there is truth." (The Doctrine of the Mean)

"It is only he who possesses absolute truth in the world who can create." (The Doctrine of the Mean)

"What you do not wish others should do onto you, do not do onto them." (The Doctrine of the Mean)

"Always say less than what is necessary." (The Doctrine of the Mean)

"The moral man can find himself in no situation in life in which hs is not master of himself." (The Doctrine of the Mean)

"The accomplishment of great things consists in doing small things well."
(The Doctrine of the Mean)

Mencius from "The Real Man"

"The disease of men is to neglect their own fields and go to weeding those of others, to exact much from others and lay light burdens on themselves."

"A true scholar holds possession of himself, neither by riches nor poverty forced away from his virtue."

"The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman."

"He whose good name comes from what he is, needs no trappings."

"The people are the most important element in a State, the ruler is the least."

"Act with kindness, but do not exact gratitude."

"Good will subdues its oppostie, as water fire."

"Noble natures are calm and content."

"A good word has heat enough for three winters; a hard one wounds like six months of cold."

"To help another helps yourself."

"The wise questions himself, the fool others."

Lao-Tzu from "The Tao-teh King"

"It is the way of heaven to take from those who have too much and give to those who have too little. But the way of man is not so. He takes away from those who have too little, to add to his superabundance."

"He who is self-approving does not shine. He who boasts has no merit."

"He is rich who knows when he has enough."

"Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know."

"The Sage does not care to hoard. The more he uses for the benefit of others, the more he possesses himself. The more he gives to his fellow-men, the more he has of his own."

Lao-Tzu from "Wu-wei"

"Gentleness brings victory to him who attacks, and safety to him who defends."

"When the people are slilled in many cunning arts, strange are the objects of luxury that appear."

"The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be."

Lao-Tzu from "Precepts and Sayings"

"He who grasps more than he can hold, would be better without any."

"He who prides himself on wealth and honor hastens his own downfall."

"There is no sin greater than ambition; no calamity greater than discontent; no vice more sickening than covetousness. He who is content, always has enough."

"Requite injury with kindness."

"Take precautions before the evil appears; regulate things before disorder has begun."

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

"To know, but to be as though not knowing, is the height of wisdom. Not to know and yet to affect knowledge, is a vice."

"True words are not fine, fine words are not true."

Kang-Hsi from "Sacred Edict"

"Seeing men in haste, do not seek to overtake them."

"To starve is a small matter, to lose one's virtue is a great one."

"The more unlikely I am to be successful, the more diligently will I study."

"Maintain a love of harmony, that throughout your families the common speech shall be 'Let us help one another.' Then shall the world be at peace."