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

Elif Safak

Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.

Change | Contentment | Daughter | Day | Life | Life | Light | Looks | Mind | Nothing | People | Power | Regret | Safe | Time | Will | Wonder | Wrong | Think |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say Oh look! Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there.

Day |

Elif Safak

According to Audre Lorde in all of us, whether we are parents or not, there is a black op mother. Men also carry a quality that, although too often prefer not to reach for it. Black mother at Lord's metaphor of the voice of intuition, creativity and passion unencumbered by anything. The white fathers told us: I think, then I exist and Black mother within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel so I can be free.

Day | Man | Smile |

William Shakespeare

So from that spring, whence comfort seem'd to come, Discomfort swells. Macbeth (Sergeant at I, ii)

Day |

William Shakespeare

So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell! A long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth the tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms, and bears his blushing honours thick upon him; the third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely his greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, and then he falls, as i do. I have ventur’d, like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, this many summers in a sea of glory, but far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride at length broke under me, and now has left me, weary and old with service, to the mercy of a rude stream that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!i feel my heart new open’d. O, how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favours! There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have; and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 3

Day |

William Shakespeare

She knew her distance and did angle for me, madding my eagerness with her restraint, as all impediments on fancy's course are motives of more fancy; and in fine, her infinite cunning, with her modern grace subdued me to her rate.

Day | Love | Will |

William Shakespeare

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Boys | Day | Glory | Good | Greatness | Hate | Heart | Hope | Little | Man | Mercy | Pride | Smile | Old |

William Shakespeare

So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps.

Day | Good | Happy |

William Shakespeare

Resolution thus fubbed with the rusty curb of old father antic the law.

Daring | Day | Lord |

William Shakespeare

Sir, I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

Day |

William Shakespeare

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy.

Day | Man |

William Shakespeare

So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench Are from their hives and houses driven away. They called us, for our fierceness, English dogs; Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.

Age | Better | Day | Peace | Wealth | Will | World |

William Shakespeare

Shadows tonight have struck more terror to the soul of Richard than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.

Day | Time |

William Shakespeare

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.

Day |

Elizabeth Gilbert

And love is always complicated. But still humans most try to love each other, darling. We must get out hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

Day | Fun | Happy | Love | Pleasure | Promise | Will |

William Shakespeare

Sometimes we are devils ourselves, when we will tempt the frailty of our powers, presuming on their changeful potency.

Day |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).

Day | Life | Life | World |

William Shakespeare

Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

Day |

William Shakespeare

So, of his gentleness, Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

Business | Cause | Day | Death | Duty | Father | God | Greatness | Guilt | Law | Life | Life | Man | Men | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sin | Soul | Teach | Time | War | Business | God | Guilty | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this earth to do?

Day | Freedom | Grace | Heart | Intention | Life | Life | Love | Nothing | Past | Relationship | Resolution | Rest | Suffering | Time | Forgive |