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

Peter Singer

Hebrew word for charity tzedakah, simply means justice and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life.

Charity | Giving | Justice | Means |

Philip Berrigan

In the Old Testament, when the first state is proposed in the person of Saul, the first King of Israel, God tells the prophet Samuel that this project spells rejection of God. The state and its legislature are in rebellion against, or rejection of, God. Its courts are a human fabrication, cannot promote justice and peace; they are founded in violence, and legalize violence.

God | Justice | Rebellion | God | Old |

Philip Massinger

Honour is Virtue's allowed ascent: honour that clasps All perfect justice in her arms; that craves No more respect than that she gives; that does Nothing but what she'll suffer.

Justice | Nothing | Respect | Respect |

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.

Justice |

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you blasphemous — property is robbery — would, if our prejudices allowed us to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! ... Alas! philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our education be finished?

Change | Destiny | Education | Future | History | Justice | Philosophy | Property | Truth | Will |

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

My conscience is mine, my justice is mine, and my freedom is a sovereign freedom.

Conscience | Freedom | Justice |

Phyllis Diller, born Phyllis Ada Driver

My photographs don't do me justice - they just look like me.

Justice |

Pierre-Simon Laplace, Compte de Laplace, Marquis de Laplace

Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order.

Justice |

Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

The first desire is the search for the ideal. There comes a time when man seeks for a more complete justice than he finds among men, and when he seeks for someone on whom he can rely more surely than he can on his friends in the world. There comes a time when man feels a desire to open his heart to a Being who is above human beings and who can understand his heart.

Desire | Heart | Justice | Man | Search | Time | Friends | Understand |

Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

The wisdom and justice of God are within us, and yet they are far away, hidden by the veil of the limited self.

God | Justice | Wisdom | God |

Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

Any controversy waged in the service of God shall in the end be of lasting worth, but any that is not shall in the end lead to no permanent result. Which controversy was an example of being waged in the service of G-d? Such was the controversy of Hillel and Shammai. And which was not for G-d? Such was the controversy of Korah and all his company. Whoever leads the masses in the right path will not come to any sin, but whoever leads the masses astray will not be able to repent for all the wrong he commits. Thus Moses was virtuous and he led the masses in the right path, and their merit is ascribed to him, as it is written (Deuteronomy 33:21) He executed the justice of the Lord, and His ordinances for Israel. But Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, sinned and caused the multitude to sin, and so the sin of the masses is ascribed to him as it is written (I Kings 15:30) Because of the sins of Jeroboam that he committed and that he caused Israel to commit.

Controversy | Example | God | Justice | Merit | Right | Service | Sin | Will | Wrong | God |

Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

Pestilence comes upon the world because of crimes deserving the death penalties enjoined in the Torah that are not brought before the court; and because of the transgressions of the Torahs of the seventh year produce (Leviticus 25:1-7). The sword comes upon the world because of the delaying of justice and the perverting of justice; and because of those that teach Torah not according to the Halakah. Exile comes upon the world because of idolatry and incest and the shedding of blood; and because of neglect to give release to the soil during the sabbatical year.

Death | Justice | Neglect | Teach | World | Torah |

Plotinus NULL

It is now time, leaving every object of sense far behind, to contemplate, by a certain ascent, a beauty of a much higher order; a beauty not visible to the corporeal eye, but alone manifest to the brighter eye of the soul, independent of all corporeal aid. However, since, without some previous perception of beauty it is impossible to express by words the beauties of sense, but we must remain in the state of the blind, so neither can we ever speak of the beauty of offices and sciences, and whatever is allied to these, if deprived of their intimate possession. Thus we shall never be able to tell of virtue's brightness, unless by looking inward we perceive the fair countenance of justice and temperance, and are convinced that neither the evening nor morning star are half so beautiful and bright. But it is requisite to perceive objects of this kind by that eye by which the soul beholds such real beauties. Besides it is necessary that whoever perceives this species of beauty, should be seized with much greater delight, and more vehement admiration, than any corporeal beauty can excite; as now embracing beauty real and substantial. Such affections, I say, ought to be excited about true beauty, as admiration and sweet astonishment; desire also and love and a pleasant trepidation. For all souls, as I may say, are affected in this manner about invisible objects, but those the most who have the strongest propensity to their love; as it likewise happens about corporeal beauty; for all equally perceive beautiful corporeal forms, yet all are not equally excited, but lovers in the greatest degree.

Admiration | Beauty | Desire | Justice | Love | Object | Perception | Sense | Soul | Words | Beauty |

Plato NULL

What sort of thing is justice compared with injustice?

Justice |

Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. . . True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors… He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven… something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

Authority | Beginning | Charity | Doctrine | Duty | Earth | Eternal | Fear | Future | Guidance | Improvement | Indifference | Justice | Man | Men | Peace | Practice | Society | Suffering | Toleration | Zeal | Theoretical | Society | Guidance | Happiness |

Pope Pius XII, born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli NULL

Salvation and justice are not to be found in revolution, but in evolution through concord. Violence has ever achieved only destruction, not construction; the kindling of passions, not their pacification; the accumulation of hate and destruction, not the reconciliation of the contending parties; and it has reduced men and parties to the difficult task of building slowly after sad experience on the ruins of discord.

Evolution | Experience | Hate | Justice | Men | Reconciliation |

Potter Stewart

Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.

Justice |

Anne Gilchrist, née Burrows

Do not think I live in dreams. I know very well it is strictly in proportion as the present & the past have been busy shaping & preparing the materials of a beautiful future, that it really will be beautiful when it comes to exist as a present, seeing how it needs must be entirely a growth from all that has preceded it & that there are no sudden creations of flowers of happiness in men & women any more than in the fields. But if the buds lie ready folded, ah, what the sunshine will do! What fills me with such deep joy in your poems is the sense of the large complete acceptiveness--the full & perfect faith in humanity--in every individual unit of humanity--thus for the first time uttered. That alone satisfies the sense of justice in the soul, responds to what its own nature compels it to believe of the Infinite Source of all.

Faith | Growth | Joy | Justice | Men | Past | Present | Sense | Time | Will | Happiness | Think |