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

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

All looked distant and peaceful and strange. The shore seemed refined, far away, unreal. Already the little distance they had sailed had put them far from it and given it the changed look, the composed look, of something receding in which one has no longer any part.

Duty | Money | Nature | Opinion | Will | Woman |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.

Man | Opinion | Pride |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously he will not be put off by that opposition.

Art | Opinion | Praise | Work | Art |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.

Body | Indifference | Opinion |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

It swayed, minute after minute, hither and thither among the reflections and the weeds, letting the water lift it and sink it, until - you know the little tug - the sudden conglomeration of an idea at the end of one's line: and then the cautious hauling of it in, and the careful laying of it out?

God | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Opinion | Vision | World | God |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.

Opinion |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

She was writing for everybody, for nobody, for our age, for her own...

Opinion | Sanity | Suspicion |

François-René de Chateaubriand, fully François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand

It is genius that brings into being, and it is taste that preserves. Without taste genius is nought but sublime folly.

Admiration | Censure | Literature | Opinion |

Victor Hugo

The good will not add one onion soup, which is not only good to go to heaven

Courage | Good | Man | Opinion | Strength |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

If the thought is pure then the deeds are definite to be pure and quite obviously the results are unquestionably excellent.

Men | Opinion | Power | Wealth |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

May there be unison in the speech and action of humans. Only by this shall, unity emerge and serve each others’ purpose. The nation shall emerge stronger and mightier because of this.

Opinion | People | Intellect |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

If they have come on as citadels of the gods, if they have constituted an inspired charm as their armour, if they have gathered courage through the protections for the body and the bulwarks which they have made, render all that devoid of force.

Husband | Opinion | Relationship | Wife | Will |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

If we try our hand at something of which we have no knowledge and experience then failures and disappointments are inevitable.

Chance | Fear | Opinion | Work | Happiness |

Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

I discover that hardly a week passes that someone does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting.

Control | Freedom | Mind | Opinion | People | Present | Problems | Race |

Vannevar Bush

In the outside world, all forms of intelligence, whether of sound or sight, have been reduced to the form of varying currents in an electric circuit in order that they may be transmitted. Inside the human frame exactly the same sort of process occurs. Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.

Atomic bomb | Opinion | People | Talking | Think |

Václav Havel

Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.

Opinion | Time |

Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella

And when the play is over, it shall be that God will judge with justice and with grace.— aping this art divine, the human race plans for itself on earth a comedy:

Means | Opinion | Practice | War |

Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella

So that the wise men were obliged to rule themselves like lunatics to shun grim death, seeing the biggest maniac now was king.

Love | Man | Opinion |