Great Throughts Treasury

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

Related Quotes

Elizabeth Gilbert

Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.

Emil M. Cioran

No one can keep his griefs in their prime; they use themselves up.

Freedom |

Emil M. Cioran

Freedom can be manifested only in the void of beliefs, in the absence of axioms, and only where the laws have no more authority than a hypothesis.

Freedom |

Emil M. Cioran

What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?

Freedom | Man |

Emiliano Zapata, fully Emiliano Zapata Salazar

The land free, the land free for all, land without overseers and without masters.

Freedom | People | Sacrifice |

Emma Goldman

I do not believe in God, because I believe in man. Whatever his mistakes, man has for thousands of years been working to undo the botched job your god has made.

Cause | Convention | Freedom | Life | Life |

Emma Goldman

I demand the independence of woman, her right to support herself; to live for herself; to love whomever she pleases, or as many as she pleases. I demand freedom for both sexes, freedom of action, freedom in love, and freedom in motherhood.

Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |

Emma Goldman

Our institutions and conditions rest upon deep-seated ideas. To change those conditions and at the same time leave the underlying ideas and values intact means only a superficial transformation, one that cannot be permanent or bring real betterment. It is a change of form only, not of substance, as so tragically proven by Russia.

Discovery | Freedom | Man | Personality | Society | Work | Society | Discovery |

Emma Goldman

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.

Freedom | Love | Right |

Emma Goldman

Atheism... in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.

Cause | Convention | Death | Force | Freedom | Frivolity | Grave | Life | Life | Mind | Right | World |

Emma Goldman

Give us what belongs to us in peace, and if you don't give it to us in peace, we will take it by force.

Earth | Freedom | Gold | Life | Life | Love | Magic | Man | Power | World |

Emma Goldman

The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence from it is the greatest crime. The wholesale mechanisation of modern life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It is everywhere present, in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated dullness is public opinion. Few have the courage to stand out against it. He who refuses to submit is at once labeled queer,different,and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of modern life.

Freedom | Purpose | Purpose |

Emmet Fox

Many people look upon change with dread and foreboding. But for those on the spiritual path—for those who believe in God and the power of prayer—change is a fuller expression of life. When a problem or condition arises in your life that indicates a change, rely upon God, and realize that it is not so much that a door has closed on a chapter of your life, but rather that a door has opened on new and more interesting things.

Freedom | Law | Life | Life | Past | Position | Power | Prosperity | Rights |

Emma Goldman

Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be.

Coercion | Dignity | Effort | Existence | Freedom | Individual | Initiative | Labor | Life | Life | Man | Murder | People | Sense | Submission | Terrorism | Tyranny | Murder | Value |

Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

It is as though subjective life in the form of consciousness consisted in being itself losing itself and finding itself again so as to possess itself by showing itself, proposing itself as a theme, exposing itself in truth.

Existence | Freedom | Pain | Phenomena | Solitude | Sorrow | Work |

Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

We could formulate the result of our analyses in the following way: the existence of material things contains in itself a nothingness, a possibility of not-being. This does not mean that things do not exist but that their mode of existing contains precisely the possible negation of itself.

Freedom | Heart | Nothing |

Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

The moral consciousness can sustain the mocking gaze of the political man only if the certitude of peace dominates the evidence of war. Such a certitude is not obtained by a simple play of antitheses. The peace of empires issued from war rests on war. It does not restore to the alienated beings their lost identity. For that a primordial and original relation with being is needed.

Beginning | Existence | Experience | Freedom | Knowledge | Light | Object | Pain | Phenomena | Reason | Sense | Solitude | Sorrow | Space | Suppression | Truth | Work |

Emmet Fox

Treat the "Because" when you find yourself thinking that your Prayer cannot be answered for any reason whatever - treat that reason. When something says to you that you cannot demonstrate "because" - treat the because. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because I have not enough understanding - treat for understanding. When you think, I cannot treat because I have a Headache - treat the headache. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because I am full of doubts - treat the doubts. When you think I cannot demonstrate because it is now too late - treat against the time illusion. When you think, I cannot demonstrate in this part of the country - treat against the space illusion. When you think, I cannot demonstrate this thing because of my age - treat your age belief. When you think, I cannot demonstrate because someone else will hinder me - treat the belief in a power other than God. No matter what name the because may give itself, it is still your belief in limitation. Be loyal to God and know that He and He alone has all power. Treat the because.

Freedom | Ideas | Important | Knowledge | Life | Life | Means | Need | Power | Present | Prosperity | Right | Soul | Teach | Work | Friends |

Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

Death in Heidegger is an event of freedom, whereas for me the subject seems to reach the limit of the possible in suffering. It finds itself enchained, overwhelmed, and in some way passive. Death is in this sense the limit of idealism.

Care | Ego | Freedom | Future | Past | Relationship | Solitude |

Ferdinand Foch

My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. I attack.

Freedom | Law | Life | Life | Sense | Unity |