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

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Boredom is ... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Fear | Mankind |

Blaise Pascal

To eternity itself there is no other handle than the present moment. Let any man examine his thoughts and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so. All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.

Eternity | Future | Happy | Hope | Inevitable | Knowing | Light | Man | Mankind | Means | Object | Past | Present | Will | Think |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.

Future | Hope | Mankind | Sympathy | Will |

Charles Caleb Colton

Who are they that would have all mankind look backward instead of forward, and regulate their conduct by things that have been done? Those who are most ignorant as to all things that are doing. Bacon said, time is the greatest of innovators; he might also have said the greatest of improvers.

Conduct | Mankind | Time |

Charles Caleb Colton

In the age of acorns, a single barleycorn had been of more value to mankind than all the diamonds in the mines of India.

Age | Mankind | Value |

Dante, full name Durante degli Alighieri, aka Dante Alighieri NULL

World government is necessary for the world... World government must be understood in the sense that it governs mankind on the basis of what all have in common and that by a common law it leads all toward peace.

Government | Law | Mankind | Peace | Sense | World | Government |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable.

Happy | Man | Mankind | Nothing | Reason | Wise |

Edmund Burke

The first accounts we have of mankind are but accounts of their butcheries. All empires have been cemented in blood.

Mankind |

Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

War is no longer a lively adventure or expedition into romance, matching man against man in the test of the stout-hearted. Instead, it is aimed against the cities mankind has built. Its goal is their total destruction and devastation.

Adventure | Man | Mankind | Romance | War |

Elbert Green Hubbard

Of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as [the] tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior to those who differ from us in opinion.

Mankind | Opinion |

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward women, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.

Absolute | History | Man | Mankind | Object | Tyranny |

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The purpose of human life is to achieve our own spiritual evolution, to get rid of negativity, to establish harmony among our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual quadrants, to learn to live in harmony within the family, community, nation, the whole world and all living things, treating all of mankind as brothers and sisters - thus making it finally possible to have peace on earth.

Earth | Evolution | Family | Harmony | Life | Life | Mankind | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | World | Learn |

George Santayana

The mass of mankind is divided into two classes, the Sancho Panzas who have a sense for reality, but no ideals, and the Don Quixotes with a sense for ideals, but mad.

Ideals | Mankind | Reality | Sense |

George Washington

It is a maxim founded on the universal experience of mankind that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.

Experience | Mankind | Will |

George Washington

Both houses of Congress have, by their joint Committee, requested me “To recommend to the People of the United States, a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful Hearts the many Signal Favours of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Form of Government for their Safety and Happiness”... That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind Care and Protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation; for the signal and manifold Mercies, and the favourable Interpositions of his Providence in the Course & Conclusion of the late War; for the great Degree of Tranquillity, Union, and Plenty, which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational Manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our Safety and Happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious Liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general, for all the great and various Favours which he hath been pleased to confer upon us... to enable us all, whether in public or private Stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually... to promote the Knowledge and Practice of true Religion and Virtue, and the increase of Science among them and us; and generally to grant unto all mankind such a Degree of temporal Prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Care | Day | God | Government | Knowledge | Liberty | Mankind | Means | Opportunity | People | Plenty | Practice | Prayer | Prosperity | Providence | Public | Religion | Science | Tranquility | Virtue | Virtue | War | Government |

George Washington

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

Conduct | Government | Hope | Justice | Mankind | Nations | Will |

Horace Greeley

The best use of a journal is to print the largest practical amount of important truth - truth which tends to make mankind wiser, and thus happier.

Important | Mankind | Truth |

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Music is the universal language of mankind - poetry their universal pastime and delight.

Language | Mankind | Music | Poetry |

Henry Van Dyke

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.

Ambition | Little | Mankind | World | Ambition |

Immanuel Kant

Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length, comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but thou shalt do good to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fullness and consummation of the inclination to do good.

Duty | Good | Inclination | Love | Mankind | Will |