G

GAB

Some gabble with the tongue, others with the pen.

Every sinner was punished by the good Lord with a handicap: the dullard got the gift of gab.

GAMBLING

A gulp from the bitter brew of fear and hope to give some taste to a dull existence.

GENEROSITY

To find fault in our heart is easy; to find generosity in it is difficult.

Generosity in the hands of the cunning is a weapon, not a virtue.

GENIUS

True genius is a servant of his cause, not its exploiter.

Genius is no part of madness, but madmen may have genius.

GIFTS

He who gives too much belittles the recipient.

GLORY

Who pants after fame will sooner or later run out of breath.

The sweet smell of military victory has, like all perfumes, a very putrid matter as base.

The difference between gangsterism and imperialism is mainly in scale. The attacks of Hitler on Poland or Stalin on Finland, Alexander’s plundering of Asia, Titus’ sacking of Jerusalem or the banditry of the Vandals, the Vikings, the Normans, the Huns, the privateers of Queen Elizabeth, etc., etc.—it is only the size of these sanguinary excursions and the loot that distinguishes them from common holdups. Take off their gilded armor, fancy tunics, pretentious crowns and ludicrous rationalizations and before you stands a motley lot of bandits with tribal support.

Undraped of the purple, and marshal’s shako, what we commonly teach and tell as history is only a series of criminal cases in which the victim is lampooned and the gunman glorified.

True history is yet to be written.

GOD

Is not worried about His enemies, I feel, but some of His defenders are frightening to behold.

There is no need to cling to God every moment of the day, but never to veer too far away from Him—that is steady virtue.

The essence of all Being is One, and there our wisdom ends. But this we feel and know as well as we, with our little souls, can grasp the thought: the way to God is man’s love to man.

The soul of God is in the soul of man. There is no God but in the consciousness of innermost man.

God has no interpreters but man’s hearkening, and the church may or may not speak His voice. The voice of God is too high for some to hear and too low for others, and it does not exist at all for the many, many who are deaf. The voice of God may speak through the morning green of a sun-kissed meadow, the melancholy rhymes of bittersweet poetry, the angry shouts of a dying soldier giving his life on the battlefield altar of freedom, the years of parental drudgery and filial sacrifice, heavenly sermons and songs leaving the lips of the truly inspired, the words of wisdom of sages then and now.

There is no God besides the God in the depths of man’s mind. There is no love and inner freedom but that which springs from the fountain of truly divine cognition. There is no unity but the everlasting truth borne by man’s inner self.

Man lived without God for a million years. He now dwells in the presence of God, but does God dwell in the heart of man?

The ancient Hebrews did not write the name of God. I often wish the Christians would follow suit, as never was a word more misused in writing and speaking than the name of the Lord.

If modern man understands the Ways of the Lord, then the Master is in a bad way.

The small mind envisions a smallish God and then denies Him. One has to be a big man to see God in His glory, a very big man indeed.

The Hebrews have no name for Him, the Moslems have a hundred. Both suggest the same thing, that there are concepts as well as emotions that can be communicated only allegorically.

God is poor company for those who don’t speak His language.

God moves in deepest silence over the sands, the oceans and the sod. Only the thirsty soul will spy His footprints.

God is a silent partner in this world, and man certainly gives Him the short end.

GODHEAD

To get nearer to God, come closer to man.

GOLDEN MEAN

Those who follow the golden middle way often have a profound appreciation of the value of gold.

GOLDEN RULE

Do unto others as you say you do.

GOOD CHEER

Is not virtue but a step toward it. Baal Shem-Tov, the Hebrew mystic, said: “I can sing a prayer as well as say it.”

GOOD TIMES

Some people bear up worse under good times than under bad.

GOODNESS

Is held in such low regard it takes courage to profess it.

GOSSIP

We need not know a man’s personal follies to understand his philosophy.

GOVERNMENT

By observation is the so-called People’s Democracy. The citizens are apprised of various governmental changes or edicts; they don’t have any part in making them, they are merely observers!

Tyrants have often ruled in the name of the people; democracy, however, is based on the people ruling themselves.

Government where there is no opposition cannot be a people’s government.

GRADING

That we have great men in our time and recent times is not because of our educational system, but rather in spite of it. They are the ones the teachers couldn’t spoil. At least they couldn’t spoil them altogether, although some important figures of our times bear the mark of moral confusion and anti-social behavior. Some of them use their gifts and talents to sing the praise of totalitarian dictators. Others do not hesitate to undermine and betray the welfare of the democratic community they live in.

How can it be otherwise in a society in which the teachers have not yet learned that youth raised in ambition, self-assertion and competitive avarice will not grow into charitable adulthood. And if some think that they can beat more knowledge into youth by the scourge of the contest than by mere teaching, I would say that an ounce of human kindness is worth a ton of so-called knowledge. It isn’t that you need the scourge to train the youth, just as it isn’t the whip you need to keep man at work. Give man a proper job and a proper wage and freedom to live in, and he will stay at a task until it is done, because man is made to work. And give a child answers to his curious mind in open manner and in proper time, and give him freedom to query and freedom to participate in equal manner with all his classmates without fear of being degraded, without bribe of rank promises, and the child will follow your teaching eagerly, because youth wants to learn.

Does a father grade his children? Does he mark them low and high, passing and failing? They are his to teach and love alike. And if teachers lack the color of speech or the power of persuasion to entertain the interests of the young, perhaps they should seek for other fields of work instead of holding school over a herd of uneasy scholars, and leave teaching to those who feel the calling and have the cordiality of the teaching mind.

GRAMMAR

The best grammarian still can’t write a verse.

Grammarians make no new thoughts, but thoughts make new grammar.

GRANDPARENTS

Are the lost branch of this generation; the offspring does not rightly know where to place them on the family tree.

GRATITUDE

Such is the soil of man’s heart that you may plant the sweetest seed and harvest stone.

People who set out to hurt you will, in the long run, help you as often as those who desire to be of assistance may harm you.

Gratitude forever faces the obstacle of envy.

GRAVE

The real hero dies a silent death and lies in an unmarked grave.

If the epitaphs were but half true, this were the best of worlds.

GREAT IDEAS

Were never discovered by one man, but often halted by one.

GREAT THOUGHTS

Ever walk the open road. Pretenses seek out the misty byways.

GREATNESS

There are great stages in a little man’s life and small moments in the life of the great.

Big people are sometimes small men and little people are often really big.

Greatness lies less in the skill to succeed than in the ability to accede.

Raising yourself is a skill, raising your fellow man is a virtue.

Great men are simple, but what intricate simplicity!

GRIEF

Can only be cured by reason, and reason rests with God.

Those who do not care easily master their grief.

To suffer grief may be unavoidable; to inflict it is not.

GUILT

The feeling of guilt is the gateway to virtue.

Man is equal to any crime or sin under given circumstances. Those whom fate spared or favored are inclined to condemn in haste the one who drew a bad lot.

Guilt by association is not conclusive, but considerable. I think little of the virgin who spends her days in a brothel.

Some of the most unspeakable crimes leave telling marks but no telling evidence.

Lack of punishment is no proof of innocence.