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

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

He performs worship ceremonies, applies the ceremonial tilak mark to his forehead, and takes his ritual cleansing baths; he pulls out his knife, and demands donations.

Praise |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

In his hearth and home, in his palace, upon his soft and comfortable bed, day and night, the flower-girls scatter flower petals; but without the Lord's Name, the body is miserable. Horses, elephants, lances, marching bands, armies, standard bearers, royal attendants and ostentatious displays - without the Lord of the Universe, these undertakings are all useless.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Applause | Envy | Eternal | Ideals | Men | Praise | Self | Society | Society |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

The same gold is fashioned into various articles; just so, the Lord has made the many patterns of the creation.

Praise | Worship |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

You must be uncomfortable when those around you are unhappy; when you ease their discomfort, you are making them happy and making yourself happy, isn't it?

Men | People | Praise | Strength | Weakness |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism.

Children | Despair | Evil | Happy | Pain | People | Praise | Treason | Trouble | Happiness |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

It is a pity that men cannot usually possess no talent without any desire to put others down.

Mediocrity | Praise |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

We must all wait and worry all the time and men.

Love | Praise |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

The image of the Buddha on the altar is clearly not a divinity or Sage. It is a representation, an artistic image ... that points back to human who realized the highest wisdom. The Buddha cultivated his nature to an awakened state. The image symbolizes his realization of humanity's potential and aspiration for the highest goodness and compassion. When you bow, symbolically you honor your own potential for great wisdom. Furthermore, bowing is good exercise. It is not idol worship, which is superstitious and passive. Bowing to the Buddha is a practice of a principle; it is dynamic and active.

Anger | Blame | Conduct | Good | Ignorance | Mind | Praise |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

All afflictions are based on selfishness. That's why we have so much anger and so many afflictions.

Fault | Good | Praise | Slander | Will | Wisdom | Slander | Fault |

Tryon Edwards

Much of the glory and sublimity of truth is connected with its mystery. - To understand everything we must be as God.

Censure | Praise | Superiority | Wisdom |

Turkish Proverbs

Every bad has its worse. (Used to make a point that things can always go even worse and one should make the best of current situation.)

Praise |

Thucydides NULL

For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.

Action | Day | Earth | Famous | Freedom | Glory | Greatness | Honor | Knowing | Knowledge | Love | Men | Mortal | Praise | Sense | Speech | Story | Will | Happiness |

Tibetan Proverbs

Don't trust a hungry man to watch your rice.

Fortune | Good | Praise |

William Shakespeare

Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch, to try if thou be current gold indeed: young Edward lives.

Life | Life | Means | Praise |

William Shakespeare

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Praise |

William Shakespeare

Adultery? Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No. The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son was kinder to his father than my daughters got 'tween the lawful sheets. To 't, luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers. King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6

Persuasion | Praise | Words |

William Shakespeare

Allow not nature more than nature needs. King Lear, Act ii, Scene 4

Little | Praise |

William Shakespeare

Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I, Scene 2

Praise |

William James

What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.

Praise |