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

Rudyard Kipling

True. True talk, said Kim solemnly. Fools speak of a cat when a woman is brought to bed, for instance. I have heard them.

Energy | Kill | Man | Work | Vice |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

In the waters of purity, I melted like salt. Neither blasphemy, nor faith, nor conviction, nor doubt remained. In the center of my heart a star has appeared and all the seven heavens have become lost in it.

Kill | Love |

Russian Proverbs

Do not look at gift horse's mouth. (Never criticize or express displeasure when you receive a gift;be thankful that you have it at all.(examination of a horse's mouth reveals a lot about its age and condition)

Kill |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.

Father | Kill | Reality |

S. L. A. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall

Throughout human history, when humans fight each other, there is a lot of posturing. Adversaries make loud noises and puff themselves up, trying to daunt the enemy. There is a lot of fleeing and submission. Ancient battles were nothing more than great shoving matches. It was not until one side turned and ran that most of the killing happened, and most of that was stabbing people in the back. All of the ancient military historians report that the vast majority of killing happened in pursuit when one side was fleeing.

Comfort | Death | Kill | Pleasure | War | World |

Saint Catherine of Siena NULL

I acknowledge and do not deny that you love me before I existed, and that you love me unspeakably much, as one gone mad over your creature.

Hunger | Kill |

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL

It is a misery to be born, a pain to live, a trouble to die.

Appearance | Kill | Love |

Samuel Butler

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second, hand.

Better | Disease | Enough | Kill | Man | Men | Rest | Will |

Sam Levenson

If you want to know how your girl will treat you after marriage, just listen to her talking to her little brother.

Kill |

Samuel Butler

Ideas are like shadows — substantial enough until we try to grasp them.

Growth | Hurry | Kill |

Samuel Butler

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

Absolute | Kill | Man | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |

Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi

Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.

Kill |

Sydney J. Harris

Success is just a little more effort.

Kill |

Simon Wiesenthal

When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'

History | Kill | Looks | People |

Simone Weil

At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.

Fear | Kill | Men | Punishment |

Simon Wiesenthal

When history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it.

History | Kill | Looks | People |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

Kill | Time | Will |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

It saved me from ennui, he answered, yawning. Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems help me to do so.

Kill |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

Kill | Man | Pain |