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

Matthew B Ridgway, fully Matthew Bunker Ridgway

Physical courage is never in short supply in a fighting army. Moral courage sometimes is.

Courage | Fighting | Wisdom |

Antoine de Rivarol, also known as Comte de Rivarol

Ideas are a capital that bears interest only in the hands of talent.

Ideas | Wisdom |

Marie Beynon Ray

No one grows old by living - only by losing interest in living.

Wisdom | Old |

Joseph Schumpeter

Capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

Capitalism | Civilization | Logic | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every political society is composed of other smaller societies of different kinds, each of which has its interests and its rules of conduct: but those societies which everybody perceives, because they have an external and authorized form, are not the only ones that actually exist in the State... Unhappily personal interest is always found in inverse ratio to duty, and increases in proportion as the association grows narrower, and the engagement less sacred; which irrefragably proves that the most general will always the most just also, and that the voice of the people is in fact the voice of God.

Association | Conduct | Duty | God | People | Sacred | Society | Will | Wisdom | Association | Society | Engagement |

Starhawk, born Miriam Simos NULL

Our purpose is to live in harmony with those cycles [birth, growth, death and regeneration] to develop our peculiar organs of consciousness and creativity to add to the beauty, love, humor, diversity and general interest of the world.

Beauty | Birth | Consciousness | Creativity | Death | Diversity | Growth | Harmony | Humor | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | World |

William Graham Sumner

If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. doctrines are the most fearful tyrants to which men ever are subject, because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.

Doctrine | Fighting | Man | Men | Reason | War | Wisdom |

Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf

Youngsters and adults cannot learn if information is pressed into their brains. You can teach only by creating interest, by creating an urge to know. Knowledge has to be sucked into the brain, not pushed into it. First, one must create a state of mind that craves knowledge, interest and wonder.

Knowledge | Mind | Teach | Wisdom | Wonder | Learn |

Hans Albrecht Bethe

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.

Fighting | History | Ideals | War | Will |

Amilcar Cabral

Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into real improvement of living conditions.

Better | Children | Fighting | Future | Ideas | Improvement | Men | Order | Peace | People | Progress | Struggle | Words |

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

Government is everywhere to a great extent controlled by powerful minorities, with an interest distinct from that of the mass of the people.

Government | People |

Leonard Felder

In your daily life, you can treat people you meet in a way that strengthens them in spirit through genuine interest or respect… not a patronizing or false sense of sincerity… but rather a genuine curiosity and respect for each individual you meet… Your actions do make a lasting impact on each person you encounter. It’s an enormous responsibility to take seriously how you treat the people in your life, and a great joy to know you have acted with caring, warmth, and love.

Curiosity | Individual | Joy | Life | Life | Love | People | Respect | Responsibility | Sense | Sincerity | Spirit | Respect |

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

Fighting | Freedom | Means | Worth |

John Kane, fully John L. Lane Jr.

The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.

Ideas | Public |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance.

Goals | Life | Life | Man | Question |