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

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market.

Mind |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Poetry is a very complex art.... It is an art of pure sound bound in through an art of arbitrary and conventional symbols.

Abstract | Magic | Mind | Will |

Ezra Taft Benson

The Founding Fathers understood the principle that “righteousness exalteth a nation”, and helped to bring about one of the greatest systems ever used to govern men. But unless we continue to seek righteousness and preserve the liberties entrusted to us, we shall lose the blessings of heaven. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The price of freedom is also to live in accordance with the commandments of God. The early Founding Fathers thanked the Lord for His intervention in their behalf. They saw His hand in their victories in battle and believed strongly that He watched over them.

Blessings | Dignity | Freedom | Ideals | Individual | Mankind | Mind | Nations | People | Principles | Respect | Respect |

Ezra Taft Benson

You must keep your honor. You cannot yet speak officially for the country, but you can become informed. You can speak your mind. You may think you can do little about the national economy or the actions of our government and the moral weakness all about us, but we must all remember that the Lord has placed great responsibilities upon the elders of Israel in the preservation of our Constitution.

Body | Inspiration | Men | Mind | Time |

Felix Adler

Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil.

Aid | Cause | Culture | Evolution | Experience | Faith | Force | Humanity | Life | Life | Mankind | Morality | Nature | Optimism | Past | Peace | Pessimism | Power | Will |

Gustave Flaubert

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.

Appearance | Global |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss of humanity.

Man | Mind |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Pathology would remain a lovely science, even if there were no therapeutics, just as seismology is a lovely science, though no one knows how to stop earthquakes.

Good | Mind |

Hannah Arendt

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.

Action |

Italian Proverbs

Take counsel of one's pillow.

Consequences |

Italian Proverbs

On every small pretext the wolf seizes the sheep.

Ability | Fault | Mind | Fault |

Italian Proverbs

One good morsel and a hundred vexations.

Mind | Need | People |

Italian Proverbs

One may have good eyes and yet see nothing.

Action | Man | Prejudice | Reason |

Italian Proverbs

No need to say "trot" to a good horse.

Machines |

Italian Proverbs

That which doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Dawn | Evolution | History | Individual | Life | Life | Sense | Survival | Truth |

Italian Proverbs

The sound of the bell does not drive away rooks.

Mind |

Italian Proverbs

What shall I say when it is better to say nothing?

Body | Men | Mind | Reason |

Italian Proverbs

Where there's a will there's a way.

Mind | Thought | Thought |

Italian Proverbs

What the eye sees not the heart rues not.

Feelings | Mind | Mindfulness | Practice |