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

Stephan Jay Gould

Even the standard example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads - makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number

Enemy | Evidence | Hero | Regard | Spirit |

Thomas Carlyle

A man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for; what suits his constitution; and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books.

Hero | Man |

Thomas Carlyle

High Air-castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge.

Admiration | Hero | Men | Nothing | Rest | Worship |

Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

Says Spinoza: When it seems to us anything in the nature funny or silly, obscure or evil it is because we do not have only little knowledge of things, and we are ignorant system of nature and cohesion as a whole, and we want to hold things according to our thinking and our opinions, even though what he sees as our mind bad or evil is not evil or bad for the system and the laws of nature comprehensive college. But in relation to the laws of our own nature separate. As for the word of good and evil, it does not indicate something positive in itself, because the one thing the same may be simultaneously good or evil, or neither such as music, for example, it is better for Almnaqbd self evil for Alnaúh sad and lost people seemed to be his. It is not good or evil for the Dead

Dispute | Effort | Fighting | Goals | Hero | Story | Happiness |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

Being serious or being a good fellow has got nothing to do with running this country. If the breaks are with you, you could be a laughing hyena and still have a great administration.

Hero |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

The man that found the 726-carat diamond in Africa, received $350,000 for it and wants to buy a farm and silk hat. Well, I can understand a man perhaps being eccentric enough to want to own a silk hat.

Hero |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.

Hero | Life | Life | Men | Progress | Reason |

Washington Irving

The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.

Hero |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

The uncritical relations of the dead…

Hero | Law | Suffering |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called Games.

Hero | Mortal |

Walker Percy

For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead. It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can.

Hero |

Wallace Stevens

The honey of heaven may or may not come, but that of earth both comes and goes at once.

Hero | Man | Object |

Wallace Stevens

If the stars that move together as one, disband, flying like insects of fire in a cavern of night, pipperoo, pippera, pipperum . . . The rest is rot.

Body | Hero |

Wallace Stevens

The skreak and skritter of evening gone and grackles gone and sorrows of the sun, the sorrows of sun, too, gone . . . the moon and moon, the yellow moon of words about the nightingale in measureless measures, not a bird for me.

Hero | Man | Question |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?

Beauty | Blame | Hero | Isolation | Waste | Wife | Will | Beauty |

Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

Stop giving bothersome people false rewards and they will stop bothering you.

Hero |

Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

Wherever there was a group of people, and a treasure to be administered, there Peter knew was backbiting and scandal and intriguing and spying, and a chance for somebody whose brains were all there.

Day | Hero | Individual | Intelligence | Man | Mind | Science | Story | Think |

Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence.

Day | Hero | Science | Story |

Tobias Smollett, fully Tobias George Smollett

Nature and wisdom are not, but should be, companions.

Father | Hero |

Elias L. Magoon

Providence has clearly ordained that the only path fit and salutary for man on earth is the path of persevering fortitude--the unremitting struggle of deliberate self-preparation and humble but active reliance on divine aid.

Censor | Fault | Hero | Worth | Fault |