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

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,...The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being's difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.

Hope | Reason | Trust |

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.

Body | Change | Error | Fear | Hell | Hope | Love | Sin |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Holy Night We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem; The dumb kine from their fodder turning them, Softened their horned faces To almost human gazes Toward the newly Born: The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks Brought visionary looks, As yet in their astonied hearing rung The strange sweet angel-tongue: The magi of the East, in sandals worn, Knelt reverent, sweeping round, With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground, The incense, myrrh, and gold These baby hands were impotent to hold: So let all earthlies and celestials wait Upon thy royal state. Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

Day | Heart | Hope | Rest | Tears |

Elizabeth Gould Davis

So long has the myth of feminine inferiority prevailed that women themselves find it hard to believe that their own sex was once and for a very long time the superior and dominant sex.

History | Hope | Survival |

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand. Though brave its walls as any in the land, and its tall turrets lift their heads in grace; though skilful and accomplished artists trace most beautiful designs on every hand, and gleaming statues in dim niches stand, and fountains play in some flow'r-hidden place: yet, when from the frowning east a sudden gust of adverst fate is blown, or sad rains fall day in, day out, against its yielding wall, lo! the fair structure crumbles to the dust. Love, to endure life's sorrow and earth's woe, needs friendship's solid masonwork below.

Hope | Prayer |

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other, that passionate Love is Pain's own mother.

Heart | Hope | Joy | Soul | Waiting |

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.

Action | Argument | Association | Church | Consideration | Convention | God | Hope | Nature | Will | Woman | Association | God |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

I have been aware all the time did my peoples, spread far and wide Throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which i have now finished with dedicated search solemnity.

Chance | Gratitude | Grief | Hope | Tomorrow | World |

Dorothy Parker

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

Better | Hope | Laughter |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.

Hope |

Emile Zola

For a moment he [Doctor Pascal] thought he could see, in a flash, the future of the Rougon-Macquart family, a pack of wild, satiated appetites in the midst of a blaze of gold and blood.

Enough | Force | Heaven | Hope |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

How happy is the little stone that rambles in the road alone, and doesn't care about careers, and exigencies never fears; whose coat of elemental brown a passing universe put on; and independent as the sun, associates or glows alone, fulfilling absolute decree in casual simplicity.

Hope | Simplicity | Work | Happiness |

Emil M. Cioran

To live... in any sense of the word... is to reject others; to accept them, one must renounce, do oneself violence.

Hope |

Emile Zola

The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, frustrated by their bad luck, and ready to use any means necessary to advance their cause. They were a family of bandits lying in wait, ready to plunder and steal.

Affront | Deeds | Indignation | Language | Men | Need | Nothing | People | Public | Punishment | Rank | Remorse | Thought | Traitor | Deeds | Thought |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

It was a quiet way - he asked if I was his - I made no answer of the tongue but answer of the eyes - and then he bore me on before this mortal noise with swiftness, as of chariots and distance, as of wheels. This world did drop away as acres from the feet of one that leaneth from balloon upon an ether street. The gulf behind was not, the continents were new - eternity was due. No seasons were to us - it was not night nor morn - but sunrise stopped upon the place and fastened in dawn.

Fate | Hope | Land | Little | Loneliness | Peace | Suffering | Fate |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I hope your rambles have been sweet, and your reveries spacious.

Hope | Love |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I have been bent and broken, but -I hope- into a better shape.

Hope | Hunger | Plenty | Wealth |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?' she said, with angry animation. 'You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations now - I see we shall - but they can't keep me from my narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I'm bound before spring is over! There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me!

Anticipation | Heart | Hope | Humor | Will |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

He had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him.

Hope | Labor | Shame | Winning |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

I used to draw a comparison between him, and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex myself to explain satisfactorily, why their conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances. They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children; and I could not see how they shouldn't both have taken the same road, for good or evil. But, I thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man. When his ship struck, the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot, and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel. Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he trusted God; and God comforted him. One hoped, and the other despaired; they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them.

Hope | Quiet | Trust |