The cost of installing a full-blown exterior foundation drainage system may lead you to opt for merely expelling the water that makes its way into your basement. If you live on a flat site with poor drainage or a high water table, you may have no choice but to just keep throwing the water out like a castaway in a leaky rowboat, forever bailing with a bucket. The simplest interior solution, and one that I see employed often, is to install a sump pump. In my village most of the houses on the north side of Main Street have hoses sticking out of their basement window. During periods of heavy rain they are all spitting water into the roadside ditch.
Gravity is certainly cheaper and quieter than a noisy electric sump pump.
If a high water table is the problem you might need to install a perimeter french drain just below the cellar floor to help intercept the subsurface water and divert it to the sump hole. Any basement that relies on removing standing water after it has entered should also have a concrete floor slab poured. If you have a dirt cellar floor, the water that makes its way into your basement also saturates the dirt floor. Even though you eject the standing water, the damp dirt floor can still cause major moisture problems. Even a dirt floor that feels dry to the touch can effuse many gallons of water a day into your house.