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

Walter Lippmann

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

Music | Nothing | Wisdom | Understand |

André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems to be too short.

Conversation | Happy | Marriage | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

Conversation | Wisdom |

Douglas Meador

Great music is a flame that lights the tapers of man's noblest thoughts and drives shadows from the corridors of his soul.

Man | Music | Soul | Wisdom |

Felix Mendelssohn, fully Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise.

Music | Wisdom | Words |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

Three things we should keep in mind [in conversation]: first, that we speak in the presence of people as vain as ourselves, whose vanity suffers in proportion as ours is satisfied; second, that there are few truths important enough to justify paining and reproving others for not knowing them; finally, that any man who monopolizes the conversation is a fool or would be fortunate if he were one.

Conversation | Enough | Important | Justify | Knowing | Man | Mind | People | Wisdom | Truths |

William Lyon Phelps

Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

Books | Cause | Conversation | Good | Happy | Leisure | Love | Means | Music | People | Personality | Wisdom | World | Happiness | Think |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

Geometry gives us the sense of equality produced by proportion. It also heals by means of fine music all that is harsh and inharmonious or discordant in the soul, under the influence of rhythm, meter and melody.

Equality | Influence | Means | Melody | Music | Sense | Soul | Wisdom |

Margaret Percival

Night steals on; and the day takes its farewell, like the words of a departing friend, or the last tone of hallowed music in a minister’s aisles, heard when it floats along the shade of elms; in the still place of graves.

Day | Friend | Music | Wisdom | Words |

John Rossel

Music is the heartbeat of the universe. It reaches into the outer ramparts of eternity where time and space are nonexistent; it touches the stars and is reflected in the beauty of the galaxy. It is exemplified in the mathematical precision found in the largest star and the tiniest molecule. Music is emotional. It touches the heart and creates a response within the listener without his being aware of the technique.

Beauty | Eternity | Heart | Music | Precision | Space | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Precision | Beauty |

Dominique Ricard

It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love.

Learning | Love | Music | Wisdom | Learn |

Clara Kathleen Rogers

Singing is the highest expression of music because it is the most direct expression of the emotions of the soul.

Emotions | Music | Soul | Wisdom |

Russell Schweikart, fully Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart aka Schweikart

[The earth] is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe that you can block it out with your thumb, and you realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you - all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love.

Art | Birth | Death | Earth | History | Little | Love | Means | Music | Poetry | Universe | Wisdom | Art |

Friedrich Schelling, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von

Architecture is music in space as it were a frozen music.

Music | Space | Wisdom |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.

Affectation | Conversation | Equivocation | Good | Pedantry | Wisdom |

Ravi Shankar, born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, aka Pandit

Our tradition teaches us that sound is God - Nada Brahma. The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects.

God | Music | Sound | Tradition | Universe | Wisdom | God |

Tao Ho

Good architecture is like a piece of beautifully composed music crystallized in space that elevates our spirits beyond the limit of time.

Good | Music | Space | Time | Wisdom |