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 Jefferson

Victory and defeat are each of the same price.

Defeat | Price | Wisdom |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

Defeat | Foreign policy | Kill | Policy | Wisdom |

Marya Mannes

The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.

Abuse | Earth | Future | Kill | Revenge | Will | Wisdom |

William Gibbs McAdoo

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man by argument.

Argument | Defeat | Man | Wisdom |

Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL

A man's happiness requires a great deal more than any material thing. We all find it out sooner or later. If we live our lives thoughtlessly, we defeat our purpose; because our faith in God becomes shattered and there is no greater loss.

Defeat | Faith | God | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | God | Happiness |

Jean Rostand

Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.

God | Kill | Man | Men | Wisdom |

George Dennison Prentice

The pen is a formidable weapon; but a man can kill himself with it a great deal more easily than he can other people.

Kill | Man | People | Wisdom |

Francis Quarles

Be not too slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual deliberation; in such a combat he is the bravest soldier that lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads, fear disheartens; he that would kill Hydra had better strike off one neck than five heads: fell the tree, and the branches are soon cut off.

Better | Custom | Deliberation | Fear | Kill | Resolution | Wisdom | Wit |

Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly

Supporting the Equal Rights Amendment is like trying to kill a fly with a sledge hammer. You don’t kill the fly, but you end up breaking the furniture... We cannot reduce women to equality. Equality is a step down for most women.

Equality | Kill | Rights | Wisdom |

Thomas Sherlock

Those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body by intemperance as manifestly kill themselves as those who hang or poison or drown themselves.

Body | Destroy | Intemperance | Kill | Men | Wisdom |

Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.

Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Did we think victory great? So it is - but now it seems to me, when it cannot be helped, that defeat is great and that death and dismay are great.

Death | Defeat | Wisdom | Think |

Greta Woodrew, Pseud. for Greta Andron Smolowe

The body is a servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind. There is a mind/body connection that is powerful. As a healer, I am convinced disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sick thoughts express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear can kill a man. People who live in fear of disease are most likely the very people who get the disease. Conversely, if you would improve your body, guard your mind.

Body | Circumstances | Disease | Fear | Health | Kill | Man | Mind | People | Thought | Wisdom |

Kenneth Boulding, fully Kenneth Ewart Boulding

There are three basic types of human transactions: (1) the threat system – “Give it to me or I’ll kill you” or today’s more sophisticated version: “How much will you pay me to stop harming or annoying you?”… (2) the exchange system, the narrow waveband of market transactions with which economics concerns itself, and (3) the integrative system, i.e., the transactions based on the love, sharing, and altruism of which human beings are capable in spite of the denial of these phenomena in economic theory.

Altruism | Economics | Kill | Love | Phenomena | System | Will |

Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari

As always, victory finds a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

Defeat |

Medgar Evers, fully Medgar Wiley Evers

You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.

Kill | Man |

William Godwin

A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural thing.

Abstract | Business | Kill | Man | Martyrs | Men | Question | War | Business |

Emmet John Hughes

He must summon his people to be with him – yet stand above, not squat beside them. He must question his own wisdom and judgment – but not too severely. He must hear the opinions and heed the powers of others – but not too abjectly. He must appease the doubts of his critic and assuage the hurts of the adversary – sometimes. He must ignore their views and achieve their defeat – sometimes… He must respect action – without becoming intoxicated with his own. He must have a sense of purpose inspiring him to magnify the trivial event to serve his distant aim – and to grasp the thorniest crisis as if it were the merest nettle. He must be pragmatic, calculating, and earthbound – and still know when to spurn the arithmetic of expediency for the act of brave imagination, the sublime gamble with no hope other than the boldness of his vision

Action | Boldness | Critic | Defeat | Hope | Imagination | Judgment | People | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Respect | Sense | Vision | Wisdom | Respect | Crisis |