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

Shvetashvatara Upanishad

Than whom there is naught else higher, than whom there is naught smaller, naught greater, the One stands like a tree established in heaven. By Him, the Person, is this whole universe filled.

Cause | Greatness | Lord | Men | Nature |

Sydney J. Harris

People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.

Greatness | Patriotism | Pride | Wants |

Simone Weil

The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.

Civilization | Greatness | Spirituality |

Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

The guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures, seems to me in very deed to be the art of arts and the science of sciences.

Body | Earth | God | Greatness | Spirit | Submission | Universe | God |

Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

To impress the truth upon a soul when it is still fresh, like wax not yet subjected to the seal, is an easier task than inscribing pious doctrine on top of inscriptions—I mean wrong doctrines and dogmas—with the result that the former are confused and thrown into disorder by the latter.

Beauty | Distinguish | God | Greatness | Respect | Thinking | Respect | Beauty | God | Think |

Stephen Charnock

Now what greater comfort is there than this, that there is one presides in the world who is so wise he cannot be mistaken, so faithful he cannot deceive, so pitiful he cannot neglect his people, and so powerful that he can make stones even to be turned into bread if he please!

Baseness | Greatness | Sin |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

My hat's in the ring. The fight is one and I'm stripped to the buff.

Generosity | Good | Greatness | Justice | Nations | People | Spirit | Will |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

Greatness | Means | Need | Time |

Thiruvalluvar NULL

The vast world rainless, one may bid adieu to charity and penance.

Greatness |

Thomas Carlyle

All history . . . is an inarticulate Bible.

Greatness | Little |

Thomas Carlyle

Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?

Greatness | Heart | Light | Looks | Man | Men | Perspicacity | Strength | Will |

Thomas Carlyle

A healthy hatred of scoundrels.

Greatness | Little | Man |

Thomas Chalmers

One of the most essential preparations for eternity is delight in praising God; a higher acquirement, I do think, than even delight and devotedness in prayer.

Energy | Greatness | History | Individual | Peculiarity | Providence | Think |

Thomas Hughes

From behind the shadow of the still small voice--more awful than tempest or earthquake--more sure and persistent than day and night--is always sounding full of hope and strength to the weariest of us all, Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Greatness | Soul |

Thomas Merton

Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.

Attention | Destiny | God | Greatness | Myth | Order | Peace | Will | God |

Thomas Paine

The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.

Greatness | Principles |

Thomas Merton

There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God. The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our owns lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in so doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocably to their true purpose. The man who loses this sense of his own personal destiny, and who renounces all hope of having any kind of vocation in life has either lost all hope of happiness or else has entered upon some mysterious vocation that God alone can understand.

Gentleness | God | Greatness | Kindness | Mercy | Peace | Prayer | Sacrifice | God |

Thomas Merton

We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!

Attention | God | Greatness | Myth | Order | Peace | Will | God |

Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

After a child or two, that sort runs to fat, and you find you have married more of her than you bargained for.

Courage | Greatness |