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

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

Nowadays it is about as big a crime to be dumb as it is to be dishonest.

Business | Opinion | Sacred | Business |

Wendell Phillips

Revolutions are not made, they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.

Opinion |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

Now, the Communists recognized at once (or, more probably, after they had stirred things up a bit) that Senator McCarthy is a political godsend.

Change | Effort | Grace | Individual | Mind | Opinion | Thought | Thought |

Wilhelm Reich

A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger. In this case, the destruction or killing of the object is the biologically purposeful goal. The original motive is not pleasure in destruction. Rather the destruction serves the “life instinct”…and is an attempt to avoid anxiety and to preserve the ego in its totality. I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live.

Despise | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Opinion | Power | Promise | Question | Right | World | Afraid | Think |

Walter Brueggemann

A newness has begun and it is a newness to the victimized ones. Invited to join are all those who have groaned under the ways of the old kings.

Obedience | Opinion | Public | Tyranny | Think |

Walter Bagehot

The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.

Human nature | Nature | Opinion | People | Will |

Walter Lippmann

Football strategy does not originate in a scrimmage it is useless to expect solutions in a political campaign.

Absurd | Democracy | Equality | Majority | Meaning | Method | Opinion | Regard | Rule | Sacred | Sense | Sophistry | Tyranny | Virtue | Virtue | Trouble |

Walter Savage Landor

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer than the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian.

Opinion |

Walter Lippmann

Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.

Action | Church | Danger | Freedom | Opinion | Suppression | Time | Danger |

Walter Lippmann

Where the masses of people must cooperate in an uncertain and eruptive environment, it is usually necessary to secure unity and flexibility without real consent. The symbol does that… It enormously sharpens the intention of the group and welds that group, as nothing else in a crisis can weld it, to purposeful action.

Capacity | Cause | Opinion | Order |

Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

Opinion | Public |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

Failure is a judgment, an opinion. It stems from your fears, which can be eliminated by love - love for yourself, love for what you do, love for others and love for your planet.

Failure | Opinion | Failure |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

Each person on this planet is inherently, intrinsically capable of attaining dizzying heights of happiness and fulfillment.

Consequences | Opinion | Wants | Will |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

Self-confidence is measured in behavioral terms, while self-worth is assess in attitudinal ways.

Good | Opinion | People |

Wendell Berry

Thinking is the most overrated human activity.

God | Opinion | World | God |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

Out of the air a voice without a face proved by statistics that some cause was just in tones as dry and level as the place: no one was cheered and nothing was discussed.

Opinion | Public | Time |

Walker Percy

It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.

Choice | Conversation | Doubt | Hypocrisy | Little | Opinion | People | Will | Think |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

All the marvels of science and the gains of culture belong to the nation as a whole, and never again will man’s brain and human genius be used for oppression and exploitation.

Freedom | Means | Opinion | Public |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counter-revolutionary revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government, has finally brought the class struggle to a head and has destroyed every chance of setting in a formally democratic way the very acute problems with which history has confronted the peoples of Russia, and in the first place her working class and peasants.

Beginning | Enemy | Opinion | Public | Regard | World |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

Now since I have seen the ocean with my own eyes, I feel completely how important it is for me to stay in the south and to experience the color which must be carried to the uttermost- it is not far to Africa.

Care | Enough | Little | Man | Opinion | Right | World |