Quotes about treasure
page 4

Ernst Bloch photo

“We must die without much delay, and corpses may not require such expansive wrappings, in order to go the way of all flesh. The inner wealth of brotherhood will be the same ephemeral spectre, rotting into tree bark like the spurious treasure of Rübezahl, the German mountain spirit, unless it shows it has the strength to withstand even death, and conquer death; and thus not only to undergo it but to be strongly above it as an essential part of eternal life.”

Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) German philosopher

Denn wir müssen sterben, mit kurzem Verzug, und vielleicht brauchen die Leichen keinen so weiten Faltenwurf, den Weg alles Fleisches zu gehen. Der brüderlich innere Reichtum wird nicht minder kurzer Spuk, verwest zu Baumrinde wie Rübezahls falsche Schätze: zeigt sich in ihm keine Kraft, gar den Tod zu bestehen, zu besiegen, mithin nicht nur von unten an hindurch zu gehen, sondern auch an sich selbst ein kräftig oberer Teil zu sein und das Wesenselement des ewigen Lebens.
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 41

William Morris photo
Kris Roe photo
Syama Prasad Mookerjee photo
Maddox photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“There is not much good spending twelve hours a day in a black hole in the ground all your life long if there’s nothing there, no secret, no treasure, nothing hidden.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

“The Stars Below” p. 212 (originally published in Orbit 14, edited by Damon Knight)
Short fiction, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (1975)

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo
Marvin Gaye photo

“Distant lover, ooo, sugar
How can you treat my heart so mean and cruel?
Didn't you know, sugar, that I dream
Of what I spent with you?
I treasure it like it was a precious jewel, oh baby.
Lord have mercy!”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Distant Lover, co-written with Gwen Gordy and Sandra Greene.
Song lyrics, Let's Get It On (1973)

Théophile Gautier photo

“Such in the Landes of our world is the poet's stance;
When he receives no wound, his treasure he'll retain.
With such deep cut mankind his heart must also lance,
To make him spill his verse, his gold tears' gushing rain!”

Le poète est ainsi dans les Landes du monde.
Lorsqu'il est sans blessure, il garde son trésor.
Il faut qu'il ait au cœur une entaille profonde
Pour épancher ses vers, divines larmes d'or!
"Le Pin des Landes", line 13, in Poésies Complètes (Paris: Charpentier, 1845) p. 323; Miroslav John Hanak (ed.) Romantic Poetry on the European Continent (Washington: University Press of America, 1983) vol. 1, p. 415.

T. B. Joshua photo
Edmund Clarence Stedman photo
Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd photo

“O England's hate is my love unsleeping, Gwynedd my land,
Golden on every hand to the myriad reaping.
For her bounty of mead I love her, winter content,
Where turbulent wastes of the sea but touch and are spent;
I love her people, quiet peace, rich store of her treasure
Changed at her prince's pleasure to splendid war.”

Caraf trachas Lloegyr, lleudir goglet hediw,
ac yn amgant y Lliw lliwas callet.
Caraf am rotes rybuched met,
myn y dyhaet my meith gwyrysset.
Carafy theilu ae thew anhet yndi
ac wrth uot y ri rwyfaw dyhet.
"Gorhoffedd" (The Boast), line 3; translation from Robert Gurney Bardic Heritage (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969) p. 39.

“Patience, a praise; forbearance is a treasure;
Sufferance, an angel is; a monster, rage.”

Edward Fairfax (1580–1635) English translator

Book V, stanza 47
Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered (1600)

Julian of Norwich photo
Hilaire Belloc photo

“Child! Do not throw this book about;
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"Dedication on the Gift of a Book to a Child"
Verses (1910)

Baba Amte photo
William Cowper photo
Sri Chinmoy photo
Joseph Hayne Rainey photo
Washington Irving photo

“My native country was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated treasures of age.”

"The Author's Account of Himself".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)

O. Henry photo
Ralph Steadman photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Mazeppa (1819), stanza 10.

Alain Finkielkraut photo

“According to … the French counterrevolutionaries and German Romantics, … the corpus of prejudices was a country’s cultural treasure, its ancient and tested intelligence, present as the consciousness and guardian of its thought. Prejudices were the “we” of every “I”, the past in the present, the revered vessels of the nation’s memory, its judgements carried from age to age. Pretending to spread enlightenment, the philosophes had set out to extirpate these precious residua. … The result was that they had uprooted men from their culture at the very moment when they bragged of how they would cultivate them. … Convinced that they were emancipating souls, they succeeded only in deracinating them. These calumniators of the commonplace had not freed understanding from its chains, but cut it off from its sources. The individual who, thanks to them, must now cast off childish things, had really abandoned his own nature. … The promises of the cogito were illusory: free from prejudice, cut off from the influence of national idiom, the subject was not free but shrivelled and devitalised. … Everyday opinion should therefore be regarded as the soil where thought was nourished, its hearth and sanctuary, … and not, as the philosophes would have it, as some alien authority which overwhelmed and crushed it. … The cogito needed to be steeped in the profundities of the collective mind; the broken links with the past needed repairing; the quest for independence should yield to that for authenticity. Men should abandon their scepticism and give themselves over to the comforting warmth of majoritarian ideas, bowing down before their infallible authority.”

Alain Finkielkraut (1949) French essayist, born 1949

Source: The Undoing of Thought (1988), pp. 25-26.

Dogen photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Muhammad bin Qasim photo

“A mine was dug, and in two or three days the walls fell down, and the fort of Multan was taken. Six thousand warriors were put to death, and all their relations and dependents were taken as slaves. Protection was given to the merchants, artisans and the agriculturists. Muhammad Kasim said the booty ought to be sent to the treasury of the Khalifa; but as the soldiers have taken so much pains, have suffered so many hardships, have hazarded their lives, and have been so long a time employed in digging the mine and carrying on the war, and as the fort is now taken, it is proper that the booty should be divided, and their dues given to the soldiers. Then all the great and principal inhabitants of the city assembled together, and silver to the weight of sixty thousand dirams was distributed and every horseman got a share of four hundred dirams weight. After this, Muhammad Kasim said that some plan should be devised for realizing the money to be sent to the Khalifa. He was pondering over this, when suddenly a Brahman came and said, 'Heathenism is now at an end, the temples are thrown down, the world has received the light of Islam, and mosques are built instead of idol temples. I have heard from the elders of Multan that in ancient times there was a chief in this city whose name was Jibawin, and who was a descendent of the Rai of Kashmir. He was a Brahman and a monk, he strictly followed his religion, and always occupied his time in worshipping idols. When his treasures exceeded all limits and computation, he made a reservoir on the eastern side of Multan, which was hundred yards square. In the middle of it he built a temple fifty yards square, and he made a chamber in which he concealed forty copper jars each of which was filled with African gold dust. A treasure of three hundred and thirty mans of gold was buried there. Over it there is an idol made of red gold, and trees are planted round the reservoir.'… It is related by historians, on the authority of… Ali bin Muhammad who had heard it from Abu Muhammad Hindui that Muhammad Kasim arose and with his counsellors, guards and attendants, went to the temple. He saw there an idol made of gold, and its two eye were bright red rubies… Muhammad Kasim ordered the idol to be taken up. Two hundred and thirty mans of gold were obtained, and forty jars filled with gold dust… This gold and the image were brought to treasury together with the gems and pearls and treasures which were obtained from the plunder of Multan.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Multan (Punjab) . The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, Vol. I : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 205-06.
Quotes from The Chach Nama

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“In all adversities there is always in its depth, a treasure of spiritual blessings secretly hidden.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Francesco Petrarca photo

“Your high beauty, which has no equal in the world, is painful to you except insofar as it seems to adorn and set off your lovely treasure of chastity.”

L'alta beltà ch'al mondo non à pare
noia t'è, se non quanto il bel thesoro
di castità par ch'ella adorni et fregi.
Canzone 263, st. 4
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Life

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“[Guido] Oh, my Ianthe, I live but in you,
And I will win thee, through each obstacle
By tyranny of fortune raised, my own,
My best heart's treasure! (he snatches her hand)
[Manfred] Wild fool! she is your sister!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(12th April 1823) Dramatic Scene. Ianthe — Guido — Manfred.
(19th April 1823) Fragments see The Improvisatrice (1824) The Oak
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Gaston Bachelard photo
Samuel Daniel photo

“And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?”

Musophilus (1599), Stanza 163, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Westward the course of empire takes its way", George Berkeley, On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.

William Osler photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Adelaide Anne Procter photo
Upton Sinclair photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Jim Morrison photo

“We chased our pleasures here,
Dug our treasures there,
But can you still recall
The time we cried?
Break on through to the other side!”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

"Break on Through (To The Other Side)" from The Doors

Carol Ann Duffy photo

“When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Interviewed in The Guardian, December 4, 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/04/poetry.features

Rāmabhadrācārya photo
James Hamilton photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Michael Swanwick photo

“The Founders would be uniformly horrified to think that their treasured Constitution has been used to justify abortion. It is a great irony that leftwing justices, arguing that the Constitution is a “living document,” have turned it into a writ to kill.”

Steven W. Mosher (1948) American social scientist

The Abortion Movement Just Lost their War on the Unborn https://www.pop.org/content/abortion-movement-just-lost-their-war-unborn (November 9, 2016)

Henry Kirke White photo
Theodor Mommsen photo

“This (The launching of an invasion into Armenia) was itself hazardous; but the smallness of the number (of the army, not more than 15,000 men) might be in some degree compensated by the tried valour of the army consisting throughout of veterans. A much worse circumstance was the temper of the soldiers, to which Lucullus, in his high aristocratic fashion, had given far too little heed. Lucullus was an able general, and - according to the aristocratic standard - an upright and benevolent man, but very far from being a favorite with his soldiers. He was unpopular, as a decided adherent of the oligarghy; unpopular, because he had vigorously checked the monstrous usury of the Roman capitalists in Asia Minor; unpopular, on account of the toils and fatigues which he inflicted on his troops; unpopular, because he demanded strict discipline in his soldiers and prevented as far as possible the pillage of the Greek towns by his men, but withal caused many a waggon and many a camel to be alden with the treasures of the East for himself; unpopular too on account of his manner, which was polished, stately, Hellenising, not at all familiar, and inclining, wherever it was possible, to ease and pleasure. There was no trace in him of the charm which creates a personal bond between the general and the soldier.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Pt. 1, Chpt 2. "Rule of the Sullan Restoration" Translated by W.P. Dickson
Beginning of the Armenian War
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 1

Sathya Sai Baba photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Han-shan photo
Octavia E. Butler photo
Vladimir Lenin photo

“You can become a Communist only when you enrich your mind with a knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 31.
Collected Works

Torquato Tasso photo
Anne Rice photo
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. photo
Ric Berger photo

“Europe is divided by the walls of 30 languages. Fortunately, among these national languages, around 10,000 words of Greek and Latin origin are common. This precious linguistic treasure ought to be used maximally without mutilating one single word or inventing others.”

Ric Berger (1894–1984) Swiss professor of design, decoration and art history

Europa es dividite per le muros de 30 linguas. Felicemente, inter iste linguas national, circa 10.000 parolas de origine grec e latin son commun. Iste preciose tresor linguistic debe esser utilisate al maximo sin mutilar un sol parola o inventar alteres.
Revista de Interlingua, nº 48, 1970.

Francis Escudero photo
Joseph Smith, Jr. photo
Robert Fisk photo

“I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times -- along with the big East Coast dailies -- should all be called U. S. OFFICIALS SAY.”

Robert Fisk (1946) English writer and journalist

March 21, 2006: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/263664_fisk21.html, March 21, 2006
2006

Lewis F. Powell, Jr. photo
John Ruskin photo
William L. Shirer photo
Sergey Nechayev photo
Vince Cable photo

“The House has noticed his remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from national treasure to Treasury poodle.”

Vince Cable (1943) British Liberal Democrat politician

Harriet Harman
House of Commons' Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100622/debtext/100622-0007.htm#10062245000003, 22 June 2010
About

Philip James Bailey photo
Eugene Rotberg photo
Harriet Harman photo

“This reckless Tory Budget would not be possible without the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems denounced early cuts; now they are backing them. They denounced VAT increases; now they are voting for them. How could they support everything they fought against? How could they let down everyone who voted for them? How could they let the Tories so exploit them? Do they not see that they are just a fig leaf? The Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary is just the Chancellor's fig leaf. The Deputy Prime Minister is just the Prime Minister's fig leaf. The Lib Dems' leaders have sacrificed everything they ever stood for to ride in ministerial cars and to ride on the coat tails of the Tory Government. Twenty-two Liberal Democrat ministerial jobs have been bought at the cost of tens of thousands of other people's. The Liberal Democrats used to stand up for people's jobs, but now they only stand up for their own. Look at the Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Twickenham. Mr Speaker, the House has noticed his remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from national treasure to Treasury poodle.”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

They have no mandate for this Budget; this Budget has no legitimacy. Even if the Lib Dems will not speak up for jobs, we will. Even if they will not fight for fairness, we will, and even if they will not protest against Tory broken promises, we will.
Reaction to the Coalition's budget http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100622/debtext/100622-0007.htm#10062245000003, 22 June, 2010. Link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m6VJSaFB_E&feature=related

Muhammad Ali Jinnah photo

“Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but Muslims ideology which has to be preserved which has come to us a precious gift and treasure and which we hope, others will share with us.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to Frontier Muslim Students Federation (18 June 1945)

Isocrates photo
Confucius photo

“The silent treasuring up of knowledge; learning without satiety; and instructing others without being wearied: which one of these things belongs to me?”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

To keep silently in mind what one has seen and heard, to study hard and never feel contented, to teach others tirelessly; have I done (all of) these things?
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Gloria Estefan photo
Poul Anderson photo

“Yeah. ‘Environment’ was very big for a while. Ecology Now stickers on the windshields of cars belonging to hairy young men—cars which dripped oil wherever they parked and took off in clouds of smoke thicker than your pipe can produce…Before long, the fashionable cause was something else, I forget what. Anyhow, that whole phase—the wave after wave of causes—passed away. People completely stopped caring…
I feel a moral certainty that a large part of the disaster grew from this particular country, the world’s most powerful, the vanguard country for things both good and ill…never really trying to meet the responsibilities of power.
We’ll make halfhearted attempts to stop some enemies in Asia, and because the attempts are halfhearted we’ll piss away human lives—on both sides—and treasure—to no purpose. Hoping to placate the implacable, we’ll estrange our last few friends. Men elected to national office will solemnly identify inflation with rising prices, which is like identifying red spots with the measles virus, and slap on wage and price controls, which is like papering the cracks in a house whose foundations are sliding away. So economic collapse brings international impotence…As for our foolish little attempts to balance what we drain from the environment against what we put back—well, I mentioned that car carrying the ecology sticker.
At first Americans will go on an orgy of guilt. Later they’ll feel inadequate. Finally they’ll turn apathetic. After all, they’ll be able to buy any anodyne, any pseudo-existence they want.”

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 5 (pp. 53-54)

Louise Bours photo
Thomas Young (scientist) photo
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery photo
Juan Donoso Cortés photo
David O. McKay photo

“Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give.”

David O. McKay (1873–1970) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

LDS General Conference Report (April 1950) page 32

Georges Duhamel photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Wesley Clair Mitchell photo

“In physical science and in industrial technique… we have emancipated ourselves… from the savage dependence upon catastrophes for progress… In science and in industry we are radicals—radicals relying on a tested method. But in matters of social organization we retain a large part of the conservatism characteristic of the savage mind…
The 'social reformer' we have always with us, it is true. Or rather most of us are 'social reformers' of some kind… Yet the story of the past in matters of social organization is not a story that we should like to have continued for a thousand and one years. Reform by agitation or class struggle is a jerky way of moving forward, uncomfortable and wasteful of energy. Are we not intelligent enough to devise a steadier and a more certain method of progress? Most certainly, we could not keep social organization what it is even if we wanted to. We are not emerging from the hazards of war into a safe world. On the contrary, the world is a very dangerous place for a society framed as ours is, and I for one am glad of it.
Taking us all together as one people in a group of mighty peoples, our first and foremost concern is to develop some way of carrying on the infinitely complicated processes of modern industry and interchange day by day, despite all tedium and fatigue, and yet to keep ourselves interested in our work and contented with the division of the product…
What is lacking to achieve that end… is not so much good will as it is knowledge—above all, knowledge of human behavior. Our best hope for the future lies in the extension to social organization of the methods that we already employ in our most progressive fields of effort. In science and in industry… we do not wait for catastrophes to force new ways upon us… We rely, and with success, upon quantitative analysis to point the way; and we advance because we are constantly improving and applying such analysis. While I think that the development of social science offers more hope for solving our social problems than any other line of endeavor, I do not claim that these sciences in their present state are very serviceable.
They are immature, speculative, filled with controversies. Nor have we any certain assurance that they will ever grow into robust manhood, no matter what care we lavish upon them…. Those of us who are concerned with the social sciences… are engaged in an uncertain enterprise; perhaps we shall win no great treasures for mankind. But certainly it is our task to work out this lead with all the intelligence and the energy we possess until its richness or sterility be demonstrated.”

Wesley Clair Mitchell (1874–1948) American statistician

Source: "Statistics and Government," 1919, pp. 45, 47, 48-51; as cited in: Arthur F. Burns. " New Facts on Business Cycles http://www.nber.org/chapters/c0386," in: Arthur F. Burns (ed). The Frontiers of Economic Knowledge. Princeton University Press. 1954. p. 61 - 106; p. 63

Philip Schaff photo

“The Pre-Lutheran German Bible. The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr. Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886. On the other hand, Dr. Franz Jostes, a Roman Catholic scholar, denied the Waldensian and defended the Catholic origin of that translation, in two pamphlets: Die Waldenser und die vorlutherische Bibelübersetzung, Münster, 1885 (44 pages), and Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung. Eine zweite Kritik, Münster, 1886 (43 pages). The same author promises a complete history of German Catholic Bible versions.
The hostility of several Popes and Councils to the circulation of vernacular translations of the Bible implies the existence of such translations, and could not prevent their publication, as the numerous German editions prove. Dutch, French, and Italian versions also appeared among the earliest prints. See Stevens, Nos. 687 and 688 (p. 59 sq.). The Italian edition exhibited in 1877 at London is entitled: La Biblia en lingua Volgare (per Nicolo di Mallermi). Venetia: per Joan. Rosso Vercellese, 1487, fol. A Spanish Bible by Bonif. Ferrer was printed at Valencia, 1478 (see Reuss, Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T., II. 207, 5th Ed.).
The Bible is the common property and most sacred treasure of all Christian churches. The art of printing was invented in Catholic times, and its history goes hand in hand with the history of the Bible. Henry Stevens says (The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, p. 25): ""The secular history of the Holy Scriptures is the sacred history of Printing. The Bible was the first book printed, and the Bible is the last book printed. Between 1450 and 1877, an interval of four centuries and a quarter, the Bible shows the progress and comparative development of the art of printing in a manner that no other single book can; and Biblical bibliography proves that during the first forty years, at least, the Bible exceeded in amount of printing all other books put together; nor were its quality, style, and variety a whit behind its quantity.""”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Roman Catholic rival German versions of the Bible

Jimmy Buffett photo
Kenan Malik photo
George Steiner photo

“Increasingly unable to create for itself a relevant body of myth, the modern imagination will ransack the treasure house of the classic.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: The Death of Tragedy (1961), Ch. VI (p. 228).

Gautama Buddha photo
Djuna Barnes photo

“I am not a critic; to me criticism is so often nothing more than the eye garrulously denouncing the shape of the peephole that gives access to hidden treasure.”

Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist

"The Songs of Synge: The Man Who Shaped His Life as He Shaped His Plays", in New York Morning Telegraph (18 February 1917)

Michael Moorcock photo
Nicolaus Copernicus photo
Trevor Baylis photo

“As they say, art is pleasure, invention is treasure, and this nation has got to recognise that. If they can spend a fortune on dead sheep and formaldehyde, then it can spend a bit more of that money on inventors.”

Trevor Baylis (1937–2018) English inventor

Cited in: Jonathan Sutherland, ‎Diane Canwell (2008), Essential Business Studies A Level: AS Student Book for AQA. p. 23