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

Abbé Raynal

The world is governed by three things - wisdom, authority, and appearance. Wisdom for thoughtful people, authority for rough people, and appearances for the great mass of superficial people who can look only at the outside.

Appearance | Authority | Character | People | Wisdom | World |

Publius Syrus

Most tyrannous is the authority of custom.

Authority | Character | Custom |

William L. Sullivan

A moral decision is the loneliest thing that exists. Knowledge is shed abroad everywhere. Anybody may dip his cup into that great sea and take out what he can. It is a public appropriation from a public store. But what the man himself must do as a moral being, what ordering he shall make of his life, what allegiance he shall choose, what cause he shall cleave to - this is decided in that solitude where his soul in authentic presence lives with no other companion than the Final Authority which he recognizes as supreme.

Authority | Cause | Character | Decision | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Public | Solitude | Soul |

George Matthew Adams

One reason why men and women lose their heads so often is that they use them so little!... The more the mind is used the more flexible it becomes, and the more it takes upon itself new interests.

Little | Men | Mind | Reason | Wisdom |

Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.

Men | People | Wisdom |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: there is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; we must love one another or die.

Authority | Choice | Hunger | Love | Man | Wisdom |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

Effeminacy is not a feminine possession any more than a masculine one. Men or women become effeminate when privilege and lack of responsibility have made them weak. The true female creature, unspoiled, is tough, persistent, and strong.

Men | Responsibility | Wisdom | Privilege |

Van Wyck Brooks

There is no stopping the world’s tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.

Authority | Ignorance | Knowledge | Wisdom | World |

Russell W. Davenport, fully Russell Wheeler Davenport

Progress in every age results only from the fact that there are some men and women who refuse to believe that what they knew to be right cannot be done.

Age | Men | Progress | Right | Wisdom |

Cyril Connolly, fully Cyril Vernon Connolly

Most of the beauty of women evaporates when they achieve domestic happiness at the price of their independence.

Beauty | Price | Wisdom | Beauty | Happiness |

Thomas Dekker

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that goes with work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.

Day | Desire | Heart | Joy | Laughter | Little | Love | Men | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Reverence | Smile | Waste | Wisdom | Work |

Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens

The prejudices of men emanate from the mind, and may be overcome; the prejudices of women emanate from the heart and are impregnable.

Heart | Men | Mind | Wisdom |

Declaration of American Women NULL

Man-made barriers, laws, social customs and prejudices continue to keep a majority of women in an inferior position without full control of our lives and bodies. From infancy throughout life, in personal and public relations, in the family, in the schools, in every occupation and profession, too often we find our individuality, our capabilities, our earning powers diminished by discriminatory practices and outmoded ideas of what a woman is, what a woman can do, and what a woman must be... We lack effective political and economic power We have only minor and insignificant roles in making, interpreting and enforcing our laws, in running our political parties, businesses, unions, schools and institutions, in directing the media, in governing our country, in deciding issues of war or peace. We do not seek special privileges, but we demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our nation, our families and our individual lives.

Control | Destiny | Family | Ideas | Individual | Individuality | Infancy | Life | Life | Majority | Man | Occupation | Peace | Position | Power | Public | Right | War | Wisdom | Woman | World |

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Never expect women to be sincere so long as they are educated to think that their first aim in life is to please.

Life | Life | Wisdom | Think |