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

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.

Defense | Knowledge | Man | Means | Nature | Power | Reason | Regard |

John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

Now if we are willing to examine the Scriptures in this way, carefully and systematically, we shall be able to obtain our salvation. If we unceasingly are preoccupied with them, we shall learn both correctness of doctrine and an upright way of life.

Deeds | Defense | Difficulty | God | Life | Life | Perception | Pleasure | Present | Reason | Regard | Time | Waste | Will | Words | Deeds | Loss | God | Learn |

Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.

Defense | Freedom | Music | People |

Samuel Adams

Christian men, who had come together for solemn deliberation in the hour of their extremity, to say there was so wide a difference in their religious belief that they could not, as one man, bow the knee in prayer to the Almighty, whose advice and assistance they hoped to obtain.

Defense | Liberty | People | Rights |

Samuel Adams

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.

Defense | Generosity | Property | Reward | Surrender | Will | Value |

Sam Keen

Soul grows in communion. Word by word, story by story, for better or worse, we build our world. From true conversation - speaking and listening - communication deepens into compassion and creates community.

Defense | Enough | Nothing | Personality | Play | Risk | Old |

Samuel Gompers

The European war has demonstrated the dependence of the governments upon the cooperation of the masses of people. Since the masses perform indispensable service, it follows that they should have a voice in determining the conditions upon which they give service.

Defense | Justice | Life | Life |

Samuel Gompers

Of course the children of immigrants go to school, and after a few years they become Americanized. But how about the grown-up persons, the adults? Who makes an effort to Americanize them? The labor organization. . . . We have done more to help establish somewhat of a conception of Americanism amongst the emigrants to our country than any other agency of which I know.

Avarice | Children | Defense | Hope | Mankind | Opportunity | Recreation | Wealth | Will |

Samuel Gompers

The 14th and 15th amendments, no matter what we thought of them, are part of the Constitution. Negroes are now equal with the white man.

Battle | Crime | Defense | Hope | Justice | Principles | Sacrifice | War | Will |

Samuel Gompers

We recognize the poverty, we know the sweatshop, we can play on every string of the harp, and touch the tenderest chords of human sympathy; but while we recognize the evil and would apply the remedy, our Socialist friends would look forward to the promised land, and wait for the sweet by-and-by. Their statements as to economic ills are right; their conclusions and their philosophy are all askew.

Defense | Effort | Important | Prudence | Prudence | Rights |

Simon Wiesenthal

The National Socialist (Nazi) party had 10 million members, of whom at most 150,000 were criminals. It would be grotesque to stick the label of criminal on every former member of the party.

Defense | History | Man |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

So it has always been with tyrants among our own people: when the King was tyrant, let him look out. And it has always been the same, and will be the same, whether the tyrant be the Barons, whether the tyrant be the Church, whether he be demagogue or dictator — let them look out.

Day | Defense | Old | Think |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

I would rather be an opportunist and float than go to the bottom with my principles round my neck.

Children | Defense | Earth | Enemy | Kill | Man | Means | People | Power | Will | Think |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

The Holy Bible is not only great but high explosive literature. It works in strange ways and no living man can tell or know how that book in its journeyings through the world has started an individual soul 10,000 different places into a new life, a new belief, a new conception and a new faith.

Crime | Defense | People | Truth | Afraid | Old | Think |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

The die-hard opinions of George III couched in the language of Edmund Burke.

Children | Defense | Enemy | Kill | Means | Will |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

The real need of the day is ... moral and spiritual rearmament ... God's Living Spirit can transcend conflicting political systems, can reconcile order and freedom, can rekindle true patriotism, can unite all citizens in the service of the nation, and all nations in the service of mankind.

Children | Defense | Enemy | Kill | Means |

Stephan Jay Gould

And, in this case, science could learn an important lesson from the literati — who love contingency for the same basic reason that scientists tend to regard the theme with suspicion. Because, in contingency lies the power of each person, to make a difference in an unconstrained world bristling with possibilities, and nudgeable by the smallest of unpredictable inputs into markedly different channels spelling either vast improvement or potential disaster.

Absurd | Defense | Disagreement | Excellence | Failure | Mediocrity | Model | Reality | Society | Struggle | Teach | Thought | Understanding | Excellence | Society | Failure | Think | Thought |

Thomas Hobbes

That we have of Geometry, which is the mother of all Naturall Science, wee are not indebted for it to the Schools.

Defense | Liberty | Man | Men | Peace | Right | Think |

Thomas Jefferson

Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise. Protection from casual embarrassments, however, may sometimes be seasonably interposed.

Better | Body | Defense | Land | Nature | Opinion | Service | Thought | Will | Thought |

Thomas Jefferson

In our university [of Virginia] you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution.

Danger | Defense | Freedom | Industry | Danger |