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

Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley

A Faint Music - Maybe you need to write a poem about grace. When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears. As in the story a friend told once about the time he tried to kill himself. His girl had left him. Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash. He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge, the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon. And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,” that there was something faintly ridiculous about it. No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perch he’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass, scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelp along the coast—and he realized that the reason for the word was crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwise the restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs, and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled up on the girder like a child—the sun was going down and he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jacket he’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railing carefully, and drove home to an empty house. There was a pair of her lemon yellow panties hanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed. A faint russet in the crotch that made him sick with rage and grief. He knew more or less where she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill. They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tears in her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,” she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights, a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay. “You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?” “Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now, “I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while— Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall— and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more, and go to sleep. And he, he would play that scene once only, once and a half, and tell himself that he was going to carry it for a very long time and that there was nothing he could do but carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listened to the forest in the summer dark, madrone bark cracking and curling as the cold came up. It’s not the story though, not the friend leaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,” which is the part of stories one never quite believes. I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.

Friend | Fury | Good | Grace | Hero | Kill | Little | Music | Need | Nothing | Novelty | Order | Pain | Play | Poverty | Rage | Reason | Self-love | Story | Thought | Novelty | Poem | Thought |

Robert Hass, aka The Bard of Berkeley

When everything broken is broken, and everything dead is dead, and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt, and the heroine has studied her face and its defects remorselessly, and the pain they thought might, as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselves has lost its novelty and not released them, and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly, watching the others go about their days— likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears— that self-love is the one weedy stalk of every human blossoming, and understood, therefore, why they had been, all their lives, in such a fury to defend it, and that no one— except some almost inconceivable saint in his pool of poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automatic life’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light, faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears.

Fury | Grace | Hero | Music | Novelty | Pain | Poverty | Self-love | Thought | Novelty | Thought |

Robert Ingersoll, fully Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll

My creed: To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits, to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love family and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world; to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words; to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then be resigned. This is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and the heart.

Courage | Creed | Dawn | Deeds | Destroy | Family | Genius | Happy | Life | Life | Love | Pity | Receive | Religion | Slavery | War | Deeds | Truths |

Samuel Smith Drury

We are building many splendid churches in this country, but we are not providing leaders to run them. I would rather have a wooden church with a splendid parson, than a splendid church with a wooden parson.

Heaven | Soul |

Helen Rowland

To a woman the first kiss is just the end of the beginning but to a man it is the beginning of the end.

Devil | Nothing | Rest | Woman | Learn |

Russian Proverbs

There will be trouble if the cobbler starts making pies. (A person should concern himself with his own trade or occupation and should not engage in, or give advice about, other trades or occupations)

Saint Vincent de Paul

It is true you have great reason to distrust yourself; but you have still greater reason to trust in him. If you are inclined to evil, you know that he is incomparably much more inclined to do good, and to do good in and by you. I beg you to make your prayer on this, and during the day to make some elevations of your soul to God, imploring his grace so as to establish you firmly in this principle, so that having cast your eyes on your miseries, you may afterwards ever raise them to his mercies, pausing for a much longer time upon his munificence in your regard than on your own unworthiness in his sight, and much more upon his strength than upon your own weakness, throwing yourself, when you see this, into his fatherly arms in the hope that he will work in you what he asks of you, and that he will bless all you do for his sake. With this, Sir, keep your heart ever ready to receive the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost.

Knowledge | People | Soul | Zeal |

Samuel Butler

Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.

Grace | Virtue | Virtue |

Samuel Butler

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Creed | Light | Reading |

Simone Weil

The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.

Appetite | Man | Risk |

Simone Weil

As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.

Day | Fate | Force | Love | Spirit | Fate |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

Now, Watson, said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from its side lanterns. You’ll come with me, won’t you?

Order |

Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

And do you not think that on their side the great Saints, seeing what they owe to quite little souls, will love them with an incomparable love? Delightful and surprising will be the friendships found there - I am sure of it. The favored companion of an Apostle or a great Doctor of the Church, will perhaps be a young shepherd lad; and a simple little child may be the intimate friend of a Patriarch. Oh! how I long to dwell in that Kingdom of Love...

God | Prayer | Science | World | God | Friends |

Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience. I have not the courage to force myself to seek beautiful prayers in books; not knowing which to choose I act as children do who cannot read; I say quite simply to the good God what I want to tell Him, and He always understands me.

Fear | Afraid |

Stanley Kunitz, fully Stanley Jasspon Kunitz

Old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race.

Need | Talking | Worth |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

It is not merely that we want to see the game played fairly. We also want to see the rules changed, so that there shall be both less opportunity and less temptation to cheat, and less chance for some few people to gain a pro?t to which either they are not entitled at all, or else which is so enormous as to be greatly in excess of what they deserve, even though their services have been great. We wish to do away with the pro?t that comes from the illegitimate exercise of cunning and craft. We also wish to secure a measurable equality of opportunity, a measurable equality of reward for services of similar value. To do all this, two, mutually supplementary movements are necessary. On the one hand, there must be - I think there now is - a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything; and, on the other hand, we must try to secure the social and economic legislation without which any improvement due to purely moral agitation is necessarily evanescent.

Courage | Creed | Determination | Duty | Enough | Indispensable | Individual | Initiative | Man | Men | Morality | Occupation | Power | Present | Qualities | Receive | Truth | Worth |

Thomas Brooks

Let those be thy choicest companions who have made Christ their chief companion.

Choice | Prayer |

Thomas Dekker

The best of men That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.

Thomas Dekker

This principle is old, but true as fate, Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.

Age | Better |

Thomas Jefferson

I never told my own religion nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I am satisfied that yours must be an excellent religion to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, not from our words, that our religion must be judged.

Addiction | Creed | Heaven | Men | System | Thinking |