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

William Godwin

I thought with unspeakable loathing of those errors, in consequence of which every man is fated to be more or less the tyrant or the slave. I was astonished at the folly of my species, that they did not rise up as one man, and shake off chains so ignominious and misery so unsupportable. So far as related to myself I resolved, and this resolution has never been entirely forgotten by me, to hold myself disengaged from this odious scene, and never fill the part either of the oppressor or the sufferer.

Circumstances | Determination | Mankind |

William Godwin

He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.

Ignorance | Mankind |

Dalia Mogahed

Muslim women do not regard Islam as an obstacle to their progress; indeed, many may see it as a crucial component of that progress.

Appreciation | Cause | Diversity | Justice | Law | Question | Tradition | Understanding | Appreciation |

William Godwin

The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

Justice | Life | Life | Magic | Mother | Truth | Worth |

William Havard

Let falsehood be a stranger to thy lips; shame on the policy that first began to tamper with the heart to hide its thoughts! And doubly shame on that inglorious tongue, that sold its honesty and told a lie.

Mankind |

William James

I now perceive one immense omission in my psychology -- the deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated.

Future | Mankind | Manliness | Mind | Peace | Position | War | Will | Old |

William Godwin

The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.

Cause | Good | Justice | Love | Happiness |

William Godwin

Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.

Better | Conduct | Consideration | Family | Father | Improvement | Justice | Justify | Life | Life | Lying | Magic | Man | Sense | Truth | Understanding | Will | Work | Worth | Vice |

William Godwin

Without independence men cannot become either wise, useful, or happy.

Consequences | Government | Thinking | Government | Trouble |

William James

If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.

Better | Business | Mankind | Martyrs | Race | Business |

William Godwin

There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape.

Art | Feelings | Friend | Heart | Justice | Kindness | Man | Object | Politics | Practice | Present | Reserve | Will | World | Art |

William James

The through-and-through universe seems to suffocate me with its infallible impeccable all-pervasiveness. Its necessity, with no possibilities; its relations, with no subjects, make me feel as if I had entered into a contract with no reserved rights ... It seems too buttoned-up and white-chokered and clean-shaven a thing to speak for the vast slow-breathing unconscious Kosmos with its dread abysses and its unknown tides.

Consequences |

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

For the credit of virtue it must be admitted that the greatest evils which befall mankind are caused by their crimes.

Fear | Justice | Love | Men | Suffering |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.

Consequences | Good | Hell | Man |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

There is no mockery like the mockery of that spirit which looks around in the world and believes that all is emptiness.

Mankind | Wisdom |

Egon Friedell, born Egon Friedmann

The highest, the only reality, is ever at hand, but for the most part invisible. Genius makes it visible... All knowing that goes beyond the immediate experience of the moment is a matter of faith.

Light | Mankind | World |