Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

John Wilkins

English Churchman, Scholar, Mathematician and Natural Philosopher, Key Player in the Universal Language Movement

"Garner up pleasant thoughts in your mind, for pleasant thoughts make pleasant lives."

"It is an excellent rule to be observed in all disputes, that men should give soft words and hard arguments; that they should not so much strive to vex as to convince each other. "

"I believe that there is no such thing as a monotheism. No religion in existence lacks any non-divine or demonic entities other than the central or highest deity. If the saints and angels and demons of modern Catholicism or any other flavor of Christianity were represented in Greek mythology, we’d call them gods…The reason why no religion is monotheistic, not even Islam (djinn, remember, and angels), is that we have a disposition towards dramatic narratives, and a god with no peers is largely going to be boring."

"Know then, as women owe a duty--so do men. Men must be like the branch and bark to trees, which doth defend them from tempestuous rage;-- clothe them in winter, tender them in age, or as ewes' love unto their eanlings lives; such should be husbands' custom to their wives. If it appears to them they've stray'd amiss, they only must rebuke them with a kiss; or cluck them as hens' chickens, with kind call, cover them under their wing, and pardon all."

"Obscurity in writing is commonly an argument of darkness in the mind. The greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness."

"Nothing is properly one's duty but what is also one's interest."