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

James Russell Lowell

The opening of the first grammar-school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State.

Church | Wisdom |

Compton Mackenzie, fully Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie

If I were a godfather wishing a gift on a child, it would be that he should always be more interested in other people than in himself. That's a real gift.

People | Wisdom |

James Russell Lowell

Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, not a quality; its seat is in the higher reason, and it is efficient only as the servant of the will. Imagination, as too often understood, is mere fantasy - the image-making power, common to all who have the gift of dreams.

Dreams | Imagination | Power | Reason | Will | Wisdom |

John Locke

The visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation that a rational creature who will but seriously reflect on them cannot miss the discovery of a deity.

Discovery | Power | Will | Wisdom | Discovery |

Henri Matisse, birth name Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse

All art worthy of the name is religious. Be it a creation of lines and colors, if it is not religious, it does not exist. If it is not religious, it is only a matter of documentary art, anecdotal art, which is no longer art.

Art | Wisdom | Art |

Maurice Nicoll

Visible creation in time, or nature... does not exist of itself. It is not the cause of itself, but is an ever-changing copy of something which lies behind appearances. The recipient, or mother, is three-dimensional space, which must be empty of all properties in order to receive the impress of the model. The copy is in time. The model (idea) is outside our space and time.

Cause | Model | Mother | Nature | Order | Receive | Space | Time | Wisdom |

Ralph S. Meadowcroft

The church of tomorrow must be universal. It cannot belong to a particular class, race or nation, but must transcend all such barriers so the brotherhood of man may be extended among us.

Brotherhood | Church | Man | Race | Tomorrow | Wisdom |

Vincenzo Monti

Abuse resembles a church procession; it always returns to the point from which it set out.

Abuse | Church | Wisdom |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I condemn Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible charge any prosecutor has ever uttered. to me it is the extremist thinkable form of corruption, it has had the will to the ultimate corruption conceivably possible. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity, it has made of every value a disvalue, of every truth a lie, of every kind of integrity a vileness of soul. People still dare to talk to me of its ‘humanitarian’ blessings! To abolish any state of distress whatever has been profoundly inexpedient to it: it has lived on states of distress, it has created states of distress in order to externalize itself.

Blessings | Church | Corruption | Distress | Integrity | Nothing | Order | People | Soul | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Value |

George S. Merriman

Death is, to us here, the most terrible word we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves.

Birth | Death | Reality | Will | Wisdom |

Jacques Monod

Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere.

Chance | Innovation | Wisdom |

Bons (Leonidovich) Pasternak

Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

Life | Life | Wisdom |

Thomas Paine

Time makes more Converts than Reason...the adulterous connection of church and state.

Church | Reason | Time | Wisdom |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

If anyone should ask me what was the motive for the creation of the world, I will answer what Moses taught, that it was the goodness of the Existent.

Will | Wisdom | World |

Beverly Rubik

No scientific concept can ever represent the richness of nature or the complexity of its full creative potential. Thus, [information] is only another facet of the diamond... The most that a new model, metaphor or concept in science can give us is the gift of new questions.

Model | Nature | Science | Wisdom |

James T. Shotwell

Peace is not merely a vacuum left by the ending of wars. It is the creation of two eternal principles, justice and freedom.

Eternal | Freedom | Justice | Peace | Principles | Wisdom |