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

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

Fire and sword are but slow engines of destruction in comparison with the babbler.

Wisdom |

Calvin Trillin, fully Calvin "Bud" Marshall Trillin

There are a lot of ways wars can end - a truce, a surrender, the complete destruction of the planet - but there’s no established way to end a correspondence.

Surrender | Wisdom |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.

Force | Ingenuity | Man | Mankind | Ingenuity |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Would you like to liberate yourself from the lower realms of life? Would you like to save the world from degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from the shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself... Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.

Awareness | Humanity | Life | Life | Self | Self-awareness | Work | World |

Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

No loss by flood and lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by the hostile forces of nature has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed.

Intolerance | Man | Nature | Loss |

Harold Laski, fully Harold Joseph Laski

The surest way to bring about destruction of a civilization is to allow the abyss to widen between the values men praise and the values they permit to operate.

Civilization | Men | Praise |

Zou Rong

Revolution is a universal rule of evolution. Revolution is a universal principle of the world. Revolution is the essence of the struggle for survival or destruction in a time of transition… Revolution turns slaves into masters.

Evolution | Revolution | Rule | Struggle | Survival | Time | World |

Frederick Treves, fully Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet

The symptoms of disease are marked by purpose, and the purpose is beneficent. The processes of disease aim not at the destruction of life, but at the saving of it.

Disease | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose |

Alan Stewart Paton

The only way in which one can make endurable man's inhumanity to man, and a man's destruction of his own environment, is to exemplify in your own lives man's humanity to man and man's reverence for the place in which he lives.

Humanity | Inhumanity | Man | Reverence |

Bernie S. Siegel

The emotional environment we create within our bodies can activate mechanisms of destruction or repair.

Charles Caleb Colton

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.

Chance | Cruelty | God | Humanity | Justice | Mercy | Merit | Motives | Service | Will | Cruelty | Value | Victim |

Dag Hammarskjöld

Because it is more difficult to limit wars to a single area, all wars are of concern for all nations. Not only construction, but also destruction may today be global.

Global | Nations |

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

In the human heart there is a ceaseless birth of passions, so that the destruction of one is almost always the establishment of another.

Birth | Heart |

Edmund Burke

The passions and desires, like the two twists of a rope, mutually mix one with the other, and twine inextricably round the heart; producing good if moderately indulged; but certain destruction if suffered to become inordinate.

Good | Heart |

Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

War is no longer a lively adventure or expedition into romance, matching man against man in the test of the stout-hearted. Instead, it is aimed against the cities mankind has built. Its goal is their total destruction and devastation.

Adventure | Man | Mankind | Romance | War |

Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

The pact of Munich was a more fell blow to humanity than the atom bomb at Hiroshima. Suffocation of human freedom among a once free people, however quietly and peacefully accomplished, is more far-reaching in its implications and its effects on their future than the destruction of their homes, industrial centers and transportation facilities. Out of rubble heaps, willing hands can rebuild a better city; but out of freedom lost can stem only generations of hate and bitter struggle and brutal oppression.

Better | Freedom | Future | Hate | Humanity | Oppression | People | Struggle |

Ellen Key, fully Ellen Karolina Sofia Key

The destruction of the personality is the great evil of the time.

Evil | Personality | Time |