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

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

Church | Faith | Influence | Mind | Will |

Samuel Pepys

Up and with my wife to church, where Mr. Mills made an unnecessary sermon on Original Sin, neither understood by himself, nor the people.

Church | Man | People | Woman |

Samuel I. Prime, fully Samuel Irenaeus Prime

Patience and perseverance are never more thoroughly Christian graces than when features of prayer.

Boys | Children | Church | God | Heart | Learning | Lesson | Men | Training | Will | God | Child |

Simon Wiesenthal

There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today... they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.

Church | Silence |

Simone Weil

Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.

Antiquity | Church | Civilization | Evil | Mistake | Zeal |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

Ready-made phrases and the ritual of etiquette were unknown to him; his thoughtfulness was pure improvisation, and it resembled the little inventions affection inspires.

Church | Death | Heaven | Soul | War | Old |

Sinéad O’Connor, fully Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor

I cannot put in danger the lives of my two children, my musicians and my technicians, so I have decided to cancel this concert.

Church | Reputation | Spirit | Will |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

‘I wonder!’ said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. ‘Perhaps there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let us consider the problem in the light of pure reason.’

Church | Heart |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.

Church | Doubt | Heart | Mission | Mother | Pardon | Will |

Cyprian, aka Saint Cyprian of Carthage, fully Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus NULL

He pitilessly punishes himself, and, in his heart, performs the same cruel office which Divine Justice reserves for the chastisement of the greatest criminal.

Church | Father | God | God |

Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

We are free to be ignorant [about the day on which angels were created] because we neither must nor can know.

Church |

Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

God's love is revealed just as much in the most simple soul who does not resist His graces as in the most sublime.

Church | Enough | God | Good | Grace | Light | Looks | Love | Nature | Nothing | Soul | God |

Cyprian, aka Saint Cyprian of Carthage, fully Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus NULL

No one is safe by his own strength, but he is safe by the grace and mercy of God.

Church |

Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

The conflict between the flesh and the Spirit, because of the sinfulness of man, revolves around his [man’s] nature.

Church | Giving | Heart | Joy | Lord | Peace | Salvation | World |

Thérèse de Lisieux, fully Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin NULL

Even now I know it: yes, all my hopes will be fulfilled... yes... the Lord will work wonders for me which will surpass infinitely my immeasurable desires.

Body | Church | Heart | Love | Martyrs |

Cyprian, aka Saint Cyprian of Carthage, fully Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus NULL

The envious man is cruel, proud, unfaithful, impatient, and quarrelsome; and, what is strange, when this vice gains the mastery, he is no longer master of himself, and he is unable to correct his many faults. If the bond of peace is broken, if the rights of fraternal charity are violated, if truth is altered or disguised, it is often envy that hurries him on to crime.

Church | Honor | Lord |

Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

But in the case of man, hard as it is for him to learn how to submit to rule, it seems far harder to know how to rule over men, and hardest of all, with this rule of ours, which leads them by the divine law, and to God, for its risk is, in the eyes of a thoughtful man, proportionate to its height and dignity. For, first of all, he must, like silver or gold, though in general circulation in all kinds of seasons and affairs, never ring false or alloyed, or give token of any inferior matter, needing further refinement in the fire; or else, the wider his rule, the greater evil he will be. Since the injury which extends to many is greater than that which is confined to a single individual… nothing is so easy as to become evil, even without any one to lead us on to it; while the attainment of virtue is rare and difficult, even where there is much to attract and encourage us.

Body | Church | Day | Doctrine | Fear | God | Grace | Innovation | Judgment | Love | Neglect | Novelty | Present | Protest | Safe | Spirit | Strength | Will | Novelty | God | Think |

Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola

We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchic Church defines it thus.

Church |

Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola

You wish to reform the world: reform yourself, otherwise your efforts will be in vain.

Church |

Stephan Jay Gould

As we discern a fine line between crank and genius, so also (and unfortunately) we must acknowledge an equally graded trajectory from crank to demagogue. When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.

Church | Enemy | Intolerance | Men | Religion | Rhetoric |