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

Thomas Paine

It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance.

Equality | Rights |

Thomas Paine

The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world is a sort of nondescribable, chameleon-colored thing called prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for he authorized it to be made known to the French Government, as a confidential matter (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here state), he authorized it, I say, to be announced, and that for the purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's mission to England, that the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's authority, was restricted to that of demanding the surrender of the western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American vessels.

Cause | Circumstances | Man | Mankind | Nature | Power | Principles | Rights | War | Will |

Thomas Paine

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.

Boldness | Conduct | Cowardice | Example | Little | Men | Principles | Property | Rights | Sense | Tyranny | Wealth | Will | Wrong | Afraid |

Thomas Paine

The society adopts neither rites nor priesthood, and it will never lose sight of the resolution not to advance anything as a society inconvenient to any sect or sects, in any time or country, and under any government. It will be seen that it is so much the more easy for the society to keep within this circle, because, that the dogmas of the Theophilanthropists are those upon which all the sects have agreed, that their moral is that upon which there has never been the least dissent; and that the name they have taken expresses the double end of all the sects, that of leading to the adoration of God and love of man.

Man | Right | Rights | Slavery | Will |

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, born Vladimir Jabotinsky

I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly peaceful credo.

Enough | Equality | Good | Mind | Nations | Rights | Will |

Thomas Paine

When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument and good order.

Rebellion | Right | Rights |

United Nations NULL

Article 8 - The United Nations shall place no restrictions on the eligibility of men and women to participate in any capacity and under conditions of equality in its principal and subsidiary organs.

Aggression | Attainment | Conformity | Distinction | Justice | Nations | Peace | Principles | Problems | Respect | Rights | Self-determination | Suppression | Respect |

Virginia Gildersleeve, fully Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve

It was hard for an American to understand the contented acceptance by English men and women of permanent places in the lowest social rank.

Abstract | Better | Good | Policy | Principles | Rights | Work |

Thomas Paine

When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

Equality | Man | Nothing | Riches | Rights | Time | Riches |

Thomas Paine

This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

Rights |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

We would never understand why Mexico wasn’t crazy about us. We have always had their goodwill, oil, coffee and minerals at heart.

Civilization | Rights | Will |

Wendell Phillips

Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.

Need | Rights | Friends |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

And over all the sky—the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.

Rights |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Of the terrible doubt of appearances, of the uncertainty after all, that we may-be deluded, that may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, that may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only. May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, the skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known.

Giving | Indispensable | Rights |

Walter Lippmann

Certainly he is not of the generation that regards honesty as the best policy. However, he does regard it as a policy.

Abstract | Fate | Ideas | Life | Life | Poverty | Rights | Theories | Worry | Fate | Think |

Walter Lippmann

Private property was the original source of freedom. It still is its main ballpark.

Ends | Property | Rights | System |

Walter Lippmann

Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, finds reasons afterword.

Destroy | Liberty | Majority | Man | Men | Order | Property | Right | Rights |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Thought of obedience, faith, adhesiveness; as I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

Giving | Indispensable | Rights |

Walter Lippmann

The capacity to act upon the hidden realities of a situation is spite of appearances is the essence of statesmanship. It consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want. It requires due courage which is possible only in a mind that is detached from the agitations of the moment. It requires the insight which comes only from an objective and discerning knowledge of the facts, and a high and imperturbable disinterestedness.

Change | Government | Man | Nature | People | Rights | Government |

Walter Bagehot

To a great experience one thing is essential — an experiencing nature.

Right | Rights | Sagacity | Sense |