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

Victor Hugo

Beside this door were a dung-hill, mattocks and shovels, some carts, an old well with its flagstone and iron pulley, a frisky colt, a strutting turkey, a chapel topped by a little steeple, an espaliered pear tree in bloom, against the wall of the chapel; such was the court whose conquest was Napoleon's dream. This bit of earth, if he could have taken it, would perhaps have given him the world.

Order |

Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

The less life in a person, the more he will try to live off your life.

Knowledge | Nothing | Order |

Victor Hugo

There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.

Battle | Cunning | Extreme | Law | Order | Vice |

Victor Hugo

There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.

Conscience |

Victor Hugo

The child’s murmuring is more and is less than words; there are no notes, and yet it is a song; there are no syllables, and yet it is language…. This poor stammering is a compound of what the child said when it was an angel, and of what it will say when it becomes a man.

Genius | Men | Model | Order |

Victor Hugo

It is possible to conceive of something even more terrible than a hell of suffering, and that is a hell of boredom.

Order | Right | Woman |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity--even under the most difficult circumstances--to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

Fighting | Friend | Joy | Need | Order | Risk |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

Cause | Conscience | Dedication | Surrender | Will | Happiness | Think |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

The size of human suffering is absolutely relative. It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys.

Enough | Excitement | Friend | Good | Hope | Order | Thought | Thought |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

Humans should always speak truth and should be committed towards it. Such a person is always immortal.

Good | Order |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

In real worship, we just not do ritualistic worship but we try to imbibe the qualities of the one we are worshipping.

Good | Order |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Every moving thing I have held fast. Eye and breath I have held fast. I have held fast all limbs in the deep gloom of the night.

Authority | Desire | Fame | Man | Order |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Our heart should be full of compassion and free from negative qualities like hatred, hostility and jealousy.

Conduct | Good | Health | Need | Order |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

In order to be blessed with a long life it is imperative that we become strong both mentally and physically. We should do all that makes our mind and body healthy and energetic.

Man | Order |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

In peace and poise, they remain detached; in peace and poise, they laugh. In peace and poise, they remain silent; in peace and poise, they chant.

Body | Life | Life | Mind | Order | Blessed |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Follow 'this' path... it is easily accessible and the cart can move freely on it.... treading on which the brave ones do not get vanquished and which also provides better prospects for earning wealth.

Conscience | Love | Will | World |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

We speak to being, to the lord of being, and also to him that controls the beings; to the beings all assembled, they shall deliver us from calamity.

Order |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

There is in life the tragedy of ignorance and selfishness. They force man to take the wrong road; and suffer calamity.

Life | Life | Money | Order | Wealth |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

Sci-fi uses the images that ‘sf’ — starting with H.G. Wells — made familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time machines, et cetera, taking them literally, not caring if they are possible or even plausible. It has no interest in or relation to real science or technology. It's fantasy in space suits. Spectacle. Wizards with lasers. Kids with ray guns. I've written both, but I have to say I respect science fiction enough that I wince when people call it sci-fi.

Liberty | Method | Order | People | Prediction | Science | Will |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.

Need | Order |