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

Thucydides NULL

You are convinced by experience that very few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought.

Ability | Audacity | Change | Courage | Extreme | Man | Meaning | Means | Moderation | Moderation | Afraid |

Tibetan Proverbs

To set fire to the wood, you need the help of the wind.

Change | World |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

Monotheism is the primitive religion which centers human consciousness on Hive Authority. There is One God and His Name is _______ (substitute Hive-Label). If there is only One God then there is no choice, no option, no selection of reality. There is only Submission or Heresy. The word Islam means "submission". The basic posture of Christianity is kneeling. Thy will be done.

Behavior | People |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

Drugs Are the Religion of the People - The Only Hope is Dope

Behavior |

Thucydides NULL

They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.

Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |

Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

If you were Jesus with missing years to kill where would you go?

Change |

Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

If you didn't serve the nasty fellow (God), the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.

Change |

William Shakespeare

A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain. Hamlet, Act i, Scene 5

Change | Justice | Man | World |

William Shakespeare

Anon, as patient as the female dove when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping.

Blame | Bride | Change | Day | Force | Heart | Hope | Love | News | Rule | Time | Will |

William Shakespeare

All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? Much Ado About Nothing (Conrade at III, iii)

Burial | Change | Melancholy | Office |

William Shakespeare

And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, Making the hard way sweet and delectable. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (Northumberland at II, iii)

Change |

William Shakespeare

And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not. Othello, Act iii, Scene 3

Change | Will |

William Shakespeare

By this good light, this is a very shallow monster! I afeard of him? A very weak monster! The Man i' th' Moon? A most poor credulous monster!--Well drawn, monster, in good sooth! The Tempest, Act ii, Scene 2

Change | Man | Music | Power | Spirit | Time |

William Shakespeare

But neither bended knees, pure hands held up, sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears, could penetrate her uncompassionate sire. The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Proteus at III, i)

Change | Man | Music | Spirit | Time |

Dan Cobley

The lesson from physics is that entropy will always increase, it’s a fundamental law. The message from marketing is that your brand is more dispersed, you can’t fight it, so embrace it and try to find a way to work with it.

Change | Force | Object |

Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

Change | Important | Life | Life | Rule | Think |

William Shakespeare

Comfort's in heaven, and we are on the earth, where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief. Richard II, Act ii, Scene 2

Change |

C. S. Peirce, fully Charles Sanders Peirce

Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic.

Belief | Change | Struggle |

William James

Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new center of interest or point of sight.

Change |

William James

Much of what we call evil is due entirely to the way men take the phenomenon. It can so often be converted into a bracing and tonic good by a simple change of the sufferer's inner attitude from one of fear to one of fight; its string can so often depart and turn into a relish when, after vainly seeking to shun it, we agree to face about and bear it . . .

Change | Evil | Fear | Good |