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

Euripedes NULL

The God knows when to smile.

Good | Man |

Eustace Budgell

We are generally so much pleased with any little accomplishments, either of body or mind, which have once made us remarkable in the world, that we endeavor to persuade ourselves it is not in the power of time to rob us of them. We are eternally pursuing the same methods which first procured us the applauses of mankind. It is from this notion that an author writes on, though he is come to dotage; without ever considering that his memory is impaired, and that he hath lost that life, and those spirits, which formerly raised his fancy and fired his imagination. The same folly hinders a man from submitting his behavior to his age, and makes Clodius, who was a celebrated dancer at five-and-twenty, still love to hobble in a minuet, though he is past threescore. It is this, in a word, which fills the town with elderly fops and superannuated coquettes.

Human nature | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Nothing | Will |

Eugenio Montale

The man of the future will be born equipped with a brain and a nervous system quite different from those we have we, human yet traditional, Copernican, classics.

Fighting | Man | Unhappiness |

Eugenio Montale

Go, words, betrayed the bite secreted in vain, the wind blowing in the heart. The real reason is most of those who keep silent

Difficulty | Man | Will |

Eugenio Montale

The poet does not know - often he will never know - whom he really writes for.

Life | Life | Looks | Man | Present | Old |

Euripedes NULL

I understand too well the dreadful act I'm going to commit, but my judgment can't check my anger, and that incites the greatest evils human beings do.

Fear | Judgment | Man |

Euripedes NULL

The man who melts with social sympathy, though not allied, is more worth than a thousand kinsmen.

Luck | Man | Luck |

Euripedes NULL

When good men die their goodness does not perish, but lives though they are gone. As for the bad, all that was theirs dies and is buried with them.

Man | Wise |

Evan Esar

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

Man |

Eugenio Montale

I was a poet who wrote an autobiography poetic without ceasing to beat at the gates of the impossible. I would not dare to speak of myth in my poetry, but there is a desire to question life. At the beginning I was skeptical, influenced by Schopenhauer . But in my verses of maturity I tried to hope, to beat the wall, to see what could be the other side of the wall, convinced that life has a meaning that escapes us. I knocked desperately as one who waits for a response.

Famous | Hunger | Important | Man | Protest | Science |

Eustace Budgell

If we look into the history of our own nation, we shall find that the beard flourished in the Saxon heptarchy, but was very much discouraged under the Norman line. It shot out, however, from time to time, in several reigns under different shapes. The last effort it made seems to have been in Queen MaryÂ’s days, as the curious reader may find, if he pleases to peruse the figures of Cardinal Pole and Bishop Gardiner; though, at the same time, I think it may be questioned, if zeal against popery has not induced our Protestant painters to extend the beards of these two persecutors beyond their natural dimensions, in order to make them appear the more terrible.

Action | Censure | Man | Reflection |

Eustace Budgell

His tawny beard was thÂ’ equal grace both of his wisdom and his face; in cut and dye so like a tile, a sudden view it would beguile; the upper part thereof was whey, the nether, orange mixt with gray.

Blush | Man | Reason |

Eustace Budgell

Love and esteem are the first principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.

Envy | Esteem | Man | Nothing | Observation | Search | Will |

Eustace Budgell

When you have gained a victory, do not push it too far; 'tis sufficient to let the company and your adversary see 'tis in your power but that you are too generous to make use of it.

Argument | Man |

Euripedes NULL

We must flaw friends just and noble anger to the right of their friends from harm and injustice.

Caution | Enemy | Man | Prudence | Prudence |

Eugenio Montale

I learned a truth that few people know: that the ' art bestows its consolations especially the artists failed.

Future | God | Ignorance | Man | God |

Euripedes NULL

If the gods do evil then they are not gods.

Man | Oblivion |

Euripedes NULL

Let my heart be wise. It is the gods' best gift.

Man | Pity |

Euripedes NULL

When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor.

Good | Man |