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

Eustace Budgell

But what has been often urged as a consideration of much more weight, is not only the opinion of the better sort, but the general consent of mankind to this great truth; which I think could not possibly have come to pass, but from one of the three following reasons: either that the idea of a God is innate and co-existent with the mind itself; or that this truth is so very obvious that it is discovered by the first exertion of reason in persons of the most ordinary capacities; or, lastly, that it has been delivered down to us through all ages by a tradition from the first man. The Atheists are equally confounded, to whichever of these three causes we assign it.

Better | Desire | Good | Impression | Order | Time | Will | Words |

Eugenio Montale

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

Time | Happiness |

Eugenio Montale

Too many lives are needed to make just one.

Question | Taste | Time |

Euripedes NULL

The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, is that which rages in the place of dearest love.

Power | Time |

Eustace Budgell

In order to keep that temper which is so difficult, and yet so necessary to preserve, you may please to consider, that nothing can be more unjust or ridiculous, than to be angry with another because he is not of your opinion. The interests, education, and means by which men attain their knowledge, are so very different, that it is impossible they should all think alike; and he has at least as much reason to be angry with you, as you with him. Sometimes, to keep yourself cool, it may be of service to ask yourself fairly, what might have been your opinion, had you all the biasses of education and interest your adversary may possibly have?

Effort | History | Order | Time | Zeal | Think |

Euripedes NULL

One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.

Deeds | Friend | Nothing | Time | Deeds |

Eugenio Montale

This proves that great lyric poetry can die, be reborn, die again, but will always remain one of the most outstanding creations of the human soul.

Eugenio Montale

The inspiration often seems like a tarantula bite him, shake him from sleep atavistic and in those moments it is impossible to write better than him, with far more cunning, with the most perfect taste.

Art | Consciousness | Instinct | Music | Practice | Style | Time | Art | Poem |

Eustace Budgell

We see by these instances what homage the world has formerly paid to beards; and that a barber was not then allowed to make those depredations on the faces of the learned which have been permitted him of late years.

Behavior | Body | Folly | Little | Love | Man | Memory | Past | Power | Time |

Evelyn Underhill

And so we take a holiday, a vacation, to gain release from this bondage for a space, to stand back from the rush of things and breathe again. But a holiday is a respite, not a cure. The more we need holidays, the more certain it is that the disease has conquered us and not we it. More and more holidays just to get away from it all is a sure sign of a decaying civilization; it was one of the most obvious marks of the breakdown of the Roman empire. It is a symptom that we haven't learned how to live so as to re-create ourselves in our work instead of being sapped by it. A car should always be charging its battery as it runs. If it simply uses up without putting back, it has to go into dock to be recharged. It is not a sign that we are running particularly well if we are constantly needing to go into dock.

Evil | Extreme | Love | Object | Time | Truth | Vision | World |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

My dear, I should like to stick you full of barbed arrows like a p-p-pin cushion...Where do you lurk? I shall come down your burrow and ch-chivvy you out like an old st-t-toat.

Absurd | Time |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

Success in this world depends on knowing exactly how little effort each job is worth... distribution of energy.

Time | Think |

Evelyn Underhill

This wide and generous spirit of love, not the religious egotist's longing to get away from the world to God, is the fruit of true self-oblation; for a soul totally possessed by God is a soul totally possessed by Charity. By the path of self-offering, the Church and the soul have come up to the frontiers of the Holy. There we are required, not to cast the world from us, but to do our best for all others as well as ourselves.

Love | Power | Time |

Evan Esar

The best way to make a long story short is to stop listening.

Time |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

He did not fail in love, but he lost the joy of it.

Time |

Ezra Taft Benson

And so this great nation has come into being under the inspiration of the Almighty to accomplish his purposes. Through modern revelation we have had made very plain to us something of the mission of America and the establishment of our national Constitution.

Blessings | Free enterprise | Men | Mind | People | Right | System | Time |

Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

It would be a dull world if we all thought alike.

Experience | Time |