Great Throughts Treasury

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

Mason Cooley

American Aphorist

"Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying."

"In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words."

"Travelers never think that they are the foreigners."

"Passion crashes into obstacles; reason peers around them."

"The meaning of today will not be clear until tomorrow."

""Why not?" is a slogan for an interesting life."

"Proverbial wisdom counsels against risk and change. But sitting ducks fare worst of all."

"The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind."

"Between repetition and forgetting, it is a marvel that a new thought ever struggles into existence."

"Every farewell combines loss and new freedom."

"The wisdom of age: don't stop walking."

"Under attack, sentiments harden into dogma."

"Indifference is an excellent substitute for patience. "

"Fail, and your friends feel superior. Succeed, and they feel resentful."

"The powerless worship Luck and Fate."

"Indifference creates an artificial peace. "

"After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means."

"A real idea keeps changing and appears in many places."

"A blocked path also offers guidance. "

"At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly."

"Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves."

"Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence."

"Hatred observes with more care than love does."

"Old and young disbelieve one another's truths."

"Malice is always authentic and sincere. "

"What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance."

"Reality is the name we give to our disappointments."

"The beginning of self-knowledge: recognizing that your motives are the same as other people's."

"Taste refers to the past, imagination to the future."

"To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget."

"A blunt statement can be as false as any other."

""I love you" is the inscription on Pandora's box."

"A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude."

"A crisis unmasks everyone"

"A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel."

"A yawn is more disconcerting than a contradiction."

"A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings."

"After desolation, grief brings back our humanity."

"A sense of righteousness is even more dangerous than a violent temper."

"Affection reproaches, but does not denounce."

"After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success."

"Altruism is for those who cannot endure their desires."

"Amazing that the human race has taken enough time out from thinking about food or sex to create the arts and sciences."

"An omnipotent God is the only being with no reason to lie."

"As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance."

"At the end of every diet, the path curves back toward the trough."

"Art seduces, but does not exploit."

"An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another."

"An adolescent is both an impulsive child and a self-starting adult."

"Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation."