Great Throughts Treasury

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

George Sewell

English Physician, Poet, Controversialist and Hack-writer

"Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt."

"When the adulation of life is gone, the coward sneaks to his death, but the brave live on."

"For often vice, provoked to shame, borrows the color of a virtuous deed; thus libertines are chaste, and misers good, a coward valiant, and a priest sincere."

"I am no Courtier, no fawning Dog of State, to lick and kiss the Hand that buffets me: nor can I smile upon my Guest, and praise his Stomach, when I know he feeds on Poison, and Death disguis'd sits grinning at my Table."

"O, reputation! dearer far than life, thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell, whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand, not all the owner's care, nor the repenting toil of the rude spiller, ever can collect to its first purity and native sweetness."

"Obedience is a part of religion, and an element of peace."

"Obedience, we may remember, is a part of religion, and therefore an element of peace; but love which includes obedience is the whole."

"The coward sneaks to death; the brave live on."

"Vain empty words of honour, glory and immortal fame, can these recall the spirit from its place, or re-inspire the breathless clay with life? What tho' your fame with all its thousand trumpets, sound o'er the sepulchres, will that awake the sleeping dead."