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

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

A woman ought to have four qualifications: (1) womanly virtue; (2) womanly words; (3) womanly bearing; and (4) womanly work. Now what is called womanly virtue need not be brilliant ability, exceptionally different from others. Womanly words need be neither clever in debate nor keen in conversation. Womanly appearance requires neither a pretty nor a perfect face and form. Womanly work need not be work done more skillfully than that of others.

Body |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

Body | Control | Death |

Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL

Not knowing how near the truth is, we seek it far away.

Body | Cause | Earth | Knowing | Man | Nature | Oneness | People | Truth |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

Whenever the mother-in-law says, "Do not do that," and if what she says is right, unquestionably the daughter-in-law obeys. Whenever the mother-in-law says, "Do that," even if what she says is wrong, still the daughter-in-law submits unfailingly to the command. Let a woman not act contrary to the wishes and the opinions of parents-in-law about right and wrong; let her not dispute with them what is straight and what is crooked. Such docility may be called obedience which sacrifices personal opinion. Therefore the ancient book, "A Pattern for Women," says: "If a daughter-in-law who follows the wishes of her parents-in-law is like and echo and shadow, how could she not be praised?

Body |

Egyptian Proverbs

The bride and bridegroom are happy at a wedding, but the guests go home unhappily.

Body | Man |

Egyptian Proverbs

Your friend chooses pebbles for you and your enemy counts your faults.

Body |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Affirmative action is the most important modern anti-discrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination. No one who knows anything about the subject would say it hasn't worked. It has certainly done something, or else it wouldn't have provoked so much opposition.

Body |

Albert Einstein

The misunderstanding here is due to a faulty translation of a German text, in particular the use of the word "mystical." I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.

Body | Soul |

William Shakespeare

ROSENCRANTZ: Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. ROSENCRANTZ: I understand you not, my lord. HAMLET: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Body |

William Shakespeare

Since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determinèd to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Body | Will |

William Shakespeare

ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. HAMLET: The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing. GUILDENSTERN: A thing my lord? HAMLET: Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after!

Body | Speech | Understand |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Only the young and stupid are confident about sex and romance.

Body | Decision | Experience | Force | Friend | Little | People | Wrong | Govern | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I found that all I really wanted was to eat beautiful food and to speak as much beautiful Italian as possible. That was it. So I declared a double major, really-in speaking and in eating (with a concentration on gelato).

Body | Danger | Order | Unhappiness | Danger |

Elizabeth Gilbert

My friend Kate once went to a concert of Mongolian throat singers who were traveling through New York City on a rare world tour. Although she couldn't understand the words to their songs, she found the music almost unbearably sad. After the concert, Kate approached the lead Mongolian singer and asked, What are your songs about? He replied, Our songs are about the same things that everyone else's songs are about: lost love, and somebody stole your fastest horse.

Body | Energy | Friend | Memory | Order | Truth | Understanding | Writing |

Elizabeth Gilbert

When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company. If you are appalled, he said, then it was a devil who had visited you. If you feel lightened, it was an angel.

Body | Emotions |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Body | Energy | Fate | Life | Life | Money | Fate |

Elizabeth Gilbert

To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.

Body | Decision | Little | People | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

When I sit in my silence and look at my mind, it is only questions of longing and control that emerge to agitate me, and this agitation is what keeps me from evolving forward.

Body | Emotions | Learn |

Elizabeth Lesser

What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

Beginning | Body | Earth | Heart | Mind | Pain | Solitude | Spirit | Spirituality | Time |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Whenever I would feel such happiness my guilt alarm went off.

Body | Emotions | Learn |