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

Wilhelm Reich

Timothy Leary spent five years in prison for unorthodox scientific ideas. Ezra Pound spent 13 years in a nuthouse for unorthodox political and economic ideas. Their books were not burned.

Children | Danger | Life | Life | Man | Men | Present | Struggle | Thinking | Danger | Think |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear-those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design.

Father | Memory | Will |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

People spend money when and where they feel good.

Dreams | Success |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

And over all the sky—the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded, breaking out, the eternal stars.

Rights |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Our frigate takes fire, the other asks if we demand quarter? If our colors are struck and the fighting done? Now I laugh content for I hear the voice of my little captain, we have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.

Men | Time | Will |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Of the terrible doubt of appearances, of the uncertainty after all, that we may-be deluded, that may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all, that may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only. May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters, the skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known.

Giving | Indispensable | Rights |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

For we cannot tarry here, we must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, we, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Father | Grave |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

What seems real to the mind can be as important as any material fact. We live by the spirit and the imagination as well as by our senses. Cartoon animation can give fantasy the same reality as those things we can touch and see and hear.

People | Will |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me, for the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, in the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me, and his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.

God | Men | Will | God | Understand |

Walter Hilton

Any man or woman who neglects to maintain inward vigilance, and only makes an outward show of holiness in dress, speech, and behavior, is a wretched creature. For they watch the doings of other people and criticize their faults, imagining themselves to be something when in reality they are nothing. In this way they deceive themselves. Be careful to avoid this, and devote yourself inwardly to His likeness by humility, charity, and other spiritual virtues. In this way you will be truly converted to God.

Advice | God | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Sin | Vision | Will | God | Obstacle |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Thought of obedience, faith, adhesiveness; as I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do not believe in men.

Giving | Indispensable | Rights |

Walter Brueggemann

The only serious energising needed or offered is the discernment of God in all his freedom, the dismantling of structures of weariness and the dethronement of the powers of fatigue.

Cause | Father | God | Justice | Knowledge | Looks | Worship | God |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Why! who makes much of a miracle? As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles, whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the water, or stand under trees in the woods, or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, or sit at table at dinner with my mother, or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon, or animals feeding in the fields, or birds--or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, or the wonderfulness of the sun-down--or of stars shining so quiet and bright, or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring; or whether I go among those I like best, and that like me best--mechanics, boatmen, farmers, or among the savans--or to the soiree--or to the opera, or stand a long while looking at the movements of machinery, or behold children at their sports, or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or the perfect old woman,or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to burial, or my own eyes and figure in the glass; these, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, the whole referring--yet each distinct, and in its place. To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every cubic inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, every foot of the interior swarms with the same; every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, all these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles. To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships, with men in them, what stranger miracles are there?

Better | God | Men | Will | God |

Walter Lippmann

There are at least two distinct selves, the public and regal self, the private and human.

Nothing |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) to cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane.

Alms | Church | Despise | Earth | Hate | Indulgence | Labor | Love | Man | Nothing | Patience | Time | Trust | Words | Poem |

Walter Lippmann

Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.

Absurd | Democracy | Equality | Majority | Meaning | Method | Opinion | Regard | Rule | Sacred | Sense | Sophistry | Tyranny | Virtue | Virtue | Trouble |

Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong

In high technology cultures today, everyone lives each day in a frame of abstract computed time enforced by millions of printed calendars, clock, and watches. In twelfth-century England there were no clocks or watches or wall or desk calendars.

Computer | Experience | Internet | Reason | Receive | Words |

Walter Savage Landor

The verdict of the judges was biased by nothing else than their habitudes of feeling.

Distinction |

Walter Savage Landor

Truth is a point, the subtlest and finest; harder than adamant; never to be broken, worn away or blunted. Its only bad quality is, that it is sure to hurt those who touch it; and likely to draw blood, perhaps the life blood of those who press earnestly upon it.

Better | Little | Mother | Past | Quiet | Smile | Will |