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

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

And yet it is not always in our power to revive the perceptions we have felt. On some occasions the most we can do is by recalling to mind their names, to recollect some of the circumstances atr tending them, and an abstract idea of perception; an idea which we are capable of framing every instant, because we never think without being conscious of some perception which it depends on ourselves, to render genera).

Happy | Ideas | Imagination | Men | Reason |

Eugene Peterson

But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing.

Attention | Church | People |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

Men |

Eugene Peterson

Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.

Integrity | Man | Men | Relationship | Responsibility | Title | Wisdom |

Eugene Peterson

You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise.

Church | Prayer | Will |

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

When a man does not form connections, it is going to be the point considered, but a woman whom no one seems to have failed to attach any part.

Evil | Men |

Eugene Peterson

Perseverance does not mean “perfection.” It means we do not quit when we find that we are not yet mature and there is a long journey still before us.

Church | Time |

Eugene Peterson

Devotions are the discipline of being quiet and listening for what we donÂ’t hear in the streets, in the media, in the workplace.

Church | Ecstasy | God | God |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

In this country — the most favored beneath the bending skies — we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child — and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…

Men | Nature | Prison | Progress |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.

Death | Equanimity | Eternal | Evil | Fear | Grace | Life | Life | Men | Reward | Will |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

Men | Unique |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very we'll within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-range sexual relationship. He is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while she is designed to take time off from her busy schedule as astronaut or role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book. Since all our natural instincts are carefully perverted from birth, it is no wonder that we tend to be, if not all of us serial killers, killers of our own true nature.

Men |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

With faith and hope and courage we hold our heads erect and with dauntless spirit marshal the working class for the march from Capitalism to Socialism, from Slavery to Freedom, from Barbarism to Civilization.

Courage | Hell | History | Labor | Men | Need | Spirit | Struggle | Time | Will | World | Writing |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.

Better | Education | Men | People | Prison | Service |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

If the splitter of hairs has a sharp enough knife, the fact of life itself can be chopped into nothing.

Men | Model | Time | Wonder | Understand |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

I do not oppose the insane asylum — but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.

Enough | Fortune | Man | Men | Nothing | Order | Work |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

Age | Culture | Evil | Father | God | Loathing | Obedience | Politics | God | Old |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The united vote of those who toil and have not will vanquish those who have and toil not, and solve forever the problems of democracy.

Courage | Injustice | Injustice | Intelligence | Justice | Men | Power | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wrong |

Eugene McCarthy, fully Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy

We do not need presidents who are bigger than the country, but rather ones who speak for it and support it.

Aid | Good | Men | Time |