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

Adam Clarke

It is strictly and philosophically true in Nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent ore the cause of any event; but they signify merely men’s ignorance of the real and immediate cause.

Accident | Cause | Chance | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Reason | Wisdom | Words |

Cyrano De Bergerac, Savinien de

The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages.

Arrogance | Men | Nature | Wisdom | Think |

Rufus Choate

All that happens in the world of nature and man - every war, every peace, every horn of prosperity, every horn of adversity, every election, every death, every life, every success and every failure, all change, all permanence, the perished leer, the unutterable glory of stars - all things speak truth in the thoughtful spirit.

Adversity | Change | Death | Failure | Glory | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Peace | Prosperity | Spirit | Success | Truth | War | Wisdom | World |

William Cowper

It is a terrible thought, that nothing is ever forgotten; that not an oath is ever uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all times, in the wide spreading current of sound; that not a prayer is lisped, that its record is not to be found stamped on the laws of nature by the indelible seal of the Almighty's will.

Nature | Nothing | Prayer | Sound | Thought | Will | Wisdom |

Victor Cousin

Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty. This foundation is somewhat covered and veiled in a nature. Art brings it out, and gives it more transparent forms. It is here and that art, when it knows well its power and resources, engages in a struggle with nature in which it may have the advantage.

Art | Beauty | Nature | Power | Struggle | Wisdom | Art | Beauty |

W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon

To strip the human being, for example, of all his attributes save his logical or calculating powers is an unwarrantable mutilation. Nature made him what he is. You cannot pick and choose. Nature is asserting herself in him, and you must take account not of one or two, but of all her assertions.

Example | Nature | Wisdom |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

It is part of human nature to think wise things and do ridiculous ones.

Human nature | Nature | Wisdom | Wise | Think |

William Enfield, aka "The Enquirer"

Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external possessions, but from wisdom, which consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue; that the cultivation of virtuous manners is necessarily attended with pleasure as well as profit; that the honest man alone is happy; and that it is absurd to attempt to separate things which are in nature so closely united as virtue and interest.

Absurd | Cultivation | Happy | Knowledge | Man | Manners | Nature | Pleasure | Possessions | Practice | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in the soil with strong mixture of troubles.

Calamity | Courage | Human nature | Love | Nature | Need | Troubles | Will | Wisdom | Calamity |

Environment Pollution Panel NULL

The pervasive nature of pollution, its disregard of political boundaries including state lines, the national character of the technical, economic and political problems involved, and the recognized Federal responsibilities for administering vast public lands which can be changed by pollution, for carrying out large enterprises which can produce pollutants, for preserving and improving the nation’s natural resources, all make it mandatory that the Federal Government assume leadership and exert its influence in pollution abatement on a national scale.

Character | Government | Influence | Nature | Problems | Public | Wisdom | Government | Leadership |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As students of nature we are pantheists, as poets polytheists, as moral beings monotheists.

Nature | Wisdom |

Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

Experiment | Nature | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."

Better | Fear | Happy | Little | Lord | Man | Money | Nature | Nothing | Wants | Will | Wisdom | Wise | Trouble |

Walter M. Germain

Negative thinking is depriving people of their natural birthright of health. It is the prime cause in shortening the lives of so many of us. And yet it is so simple to live a healthier, longer and so much happier life. We have only to recognize how God works His wonders through laws governing nature and "human nature."

Cause | God | Health | Human nature | Life | Life | Nature | People | Thinking | Wisdom | God |