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 Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

Now listen here: Printing top secret information... I don't care how they feel about the war. Whether they're for or against it. They can't and should not do this and attack the integrity of government and by God, I'm gonna fight that son of a bitching paper. They don't know what's gonna hit them now.

Care | Government | Integrity | Government |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

There is a time to be timid. There is a time to be conciliatory. There is a time, even, to fly and there is a time to fight. And I'm going to fight like hell (On Congressional moves toward impeachment).

Hell | Time |

Rita Mae Brown

One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

Life | Life |

Robertson Davies

I think a great many marriages would be saved if people would behave toward one another with the same courtesy that they would extend to someone whom they really didn't know as well as a marriage necessarily implies. ... It's not very easy to do, but it is surely easier to do than to haggle and nag and fight and bitch and yelp at one another as you hear a lot of married people doing ... They seem to feel that the familiarity of affection permits anything, including insult.

Courtesy | Familiarity | Marriage | People | Think |

Robertson Davies

It seems to me that most of us get all the adventure we are capable of digesting. Personally, I have never had to fight a dozen pirates single-handed, and I have never jumped from a moving express-train onto the back of a horse, and I have never been discovered in the harem of the Grand Turk. I am glad of all these things. They are too rich for my digestion, and I do not long for them. I have all the close shaves and narrow squeaks in my life that my constitution will stand, and my daily struggles with bureaucrats, taxgatherers and uplifters are more exhausting than any encounters with mere buccaneers on the Spanish Main.

Adventure | Life | Life | Will |

Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd

I will never submit to fight beneath that banner with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

Glory | Land | Race | Will | Old |

Robert Browning

I give the fight up: let there be an end, a privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.

Robert Browning

When the fight begins within himself A man s worth something.

Man | Worth |

Robert Browning

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.

Right | Wrong |

Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

The man who can fight to heaven's own height is the man who can fight when he's losing.

Man |

Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . . It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now that’s a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It’s the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit. It’s the keeping-your chin-up that’s hard. It’s easy to cry that you're beaten — and die; It’s easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight — Why that’s the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and battered and scarred, Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die, It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

Death | Hunger | Looks | Man | Will | Old |

Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

MAN'S CIVIL WAR - MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven And quiet nestle in the sky, Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore Without remove at anchor lie. But mounting thoughts are halèd down With heavy poise of mortal load, And blustring storms deny my ship In Virtue's haven secure abode. When inward eye to heavenly sights Doth draw my longing heart's desire, The world with jesses of delights Would to her perch my thoughts retire, Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, Though Reason stiffly do repine ; Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves, And overrules the captive will ; Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, They draw the wit their wish to fill. Need craves consent of soul to sense, Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; Hard hap where halves must disagree, Or truce halves the whole betray ! O cruel fight ! where fighting friend With love doth kill a favoring foe, Where peace with sense is war with God, And self-delight the seed of woe ! Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; O fickle sense ! beware her gin, Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !

Fighting | Joy | Kill | Longing | Love | Mortal | Peace | Quiet | Reason | Sense | Soul | Taste | War | Will | Wisdom | Wit | Woe | World |

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

There is no democracy without Socialism and No Socialism without Democracy

Learn |

Rudyard Kipling

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Rudyard Kipling

Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back -- For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Good | Health |

Russian Proverbs

A mere friend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue.

Man | Misfortune | Misfortune |

Russian Proverbs

Peace lasts till the army comes, and the army lasts till peace comes.

Will | Work |

Russian Proverbs

They don't talk about ropes in the home of the hanged person.

S. L. A. Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall

We are trapped in this spiral of self-dependence and lack of trust. Real progress will never be made until we reduce this level of fear. As a historian, I tell you it will take decades--maybe even a century--before we wean Americans off their guns. And until we reduce the level of fear and of violent crime, Americans would sooner die than give up their guns

Majority | Nothing | People |