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

Felix Adler

To-day, in the estimation of many, science and art are taking the place of religion. But science and art alike are inadequate to build up character and to furnish binding rules of conduct. We need also a clearer understanding of applied ethics, a better insight into the specific duties of life, a finer and a surer moral tact.

Children | Heart | Life | Life | Little | Meaning | Order | Rank | Sense | Words | Teacher | Understand |

Felix Adler

There is a difficulty in the way of teaching the higher life, due to the fact that only those who have begun to lead it can understand the meaning of it. Nevertheless, all men can be induced to begin to lead it. Though they seem blind, their eyes can be opened so as to see. Deep down in every human heart is the seed of a diviner life, which only needs the quickening influence of right conditions to germinate.

Aid | Effort | Plan | Sense |

Felix Adler

To those who are longing for a higher life, who deeply feel the need of religious satisfactions, we suggest that there is a way in which the demands of the head and the heart may be reconciled. Religion is not necessarily allied with dogma, a new kind of faith is possible, based not upon legend and tradition, not upon the authority of any book, but upon the moral nature of man.

Belief | Misfortune | Need | Past | Progress | Truth | Misfortune | Truths |

Gustave Flaubert

Often, when they spoke of Paris, she would murmur: "Ah! How happy we'd be, living there!" "Aren't we happy here?" the young would softly ask, passing his hand over her hair.

Common Sense | Sense |

Gustave Flaubert

Print: to see one's name in print! - Some people commit a crime for no other reason.

System | Worth |

Gustave Flaubert

Nevertheless she sometimes thought that they were the finest days of her life, those 'honeymoon days' as people call them... When the sun sinks down to rest, you breathe, beside the margin of a bay, the fragrant odors of the lemon-trees; and then, by night, on the terrace, alone with each other, with fingers intertwined, you gaze at the stars and make plans for the future. It seemed to her that there were certain places on the earth which naturally brought forth happiness, as though it were a plant native to the soil, which could not thrive elsewhere.

System |

Gustave Flaubert

On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.

Sense |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Happiness is peace after strife, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Sense |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom? and the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.

Excitement | Sense |

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa CarreƱo Youth Orchestra

I love to travel, but sometimes it's nice to stay in one place.

People | Sense |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The public, with its mob yearning to be instructed, edified and pulled by the nose, demands certainties?. but there are no certainties.

Means | Wife |

Italian Proverbs

Sometimes the lees are better than the wine.

Little | Means | Will |

Italian Proverbs

The father a saint the son a devil.

Culture | Means |

Italian Proverbs

Teeth placed in front of the tongue give good advice.

System |

Italian Proverbs

Sometimes it is better to give your apple away, than to eat it yourself.

Absolute | Belief |

Italian Proverbs

Softly, barber, the water scalds.

Balance | Rights | System | Wise |

Italian Proverbs

The best is the enemy of the good.

Sense |

Italian Proverbs

No one ever became poor through giving alms.

Art | Design | Sense | Technology | Thinking | Will | Art |

Italian Proverbs

Rather have a little one for your friend, than a great one for your enemy.

Order | Sense |

Italian Proverbs

Summer is the mother of the poor.

Democracy | Good | Means | Vision |