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

William Shakespeare

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

Calamity | Death | Delay | Dread | Dreams | Fortune | Law | Life | Life | Love | Man | Merit | Mind | Mortal | Office | Question | Respect | Time | Troubles | Will | Wrong | Respect | Calamity |

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, also known as Mulock, Mrs Craik, Mrs Craik, Miss Mulok, Miss Muloch, Miss Mulock

Kind sleep affords the only boon the wretched mind can feel; a momentary respite from despair.

Despair | Mind |

Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.

Nothing | Understand |

George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair

Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

Men |

Harold Kushner, fully Harold Samuel Kushner

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.

Fear | World |

Ida Tarbell, fully Ida Minerva Tarbell

How defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by its self-directed activity that the child, as years pass, finds its work, the thing it wants to do and for which it finally is willing to deny itself pleasure, ease, even sleep and comfort.

Wants | Child |

J. C. Penney, formally James Cash Penney

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.

Laziness |

Isak Dinesen, pen name of Baroness Karen Blixen

People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control.

Day | Dreams | Freedom | Glory | Pleasure | Will | World | Happiness |

Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

The goal is part of the desiring mind and bliss is a state of no-mind. Desiring is a barrier: non-desiring is the bridge. And all goals are egoistic because they are ambitions. Ambitions are shadows of the ego, and wherever ego is bliss is not. When the ego completely disappears, when not even a trace is left behind, bliss is found. Even to say that it is found is not exactly right, because it is our nature; we don't find it because we have never lost it in the first place. We have only become oblivious to it, we have become unconscious about it. We have gone into a deep sleep and we are dreaming all kinds of things. Because of our dreaming and sleep and unconsciousness, the bliss remains unexperienced. Otherwise it surrounds you.

Ego | Goals | Mind |

Jacques-Henri Bernadin de Saint-Pierre

Death, my son, is a good thing for all men; it is the night for this worried day that we call life. It is in the sleep of death that finds rest for eternity the sickness, pain, desperation, and the fears that agitate, without end, we unhappy living souls.

Day | Death | Eternity | Good | Rest |

John Calvin

For conscience, instead of allowing us to stifle our perceptions, and sleep on without interruption, acts as an inward witness and monitor, reminds us of what we owe to God, points out the distinction of good and evil, and thereby convicts us of departure from duty.

Distinction | Good | Witness |

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

The long sleep of death closes our scars, and the short sleep of life our wounds. Sleep is the half of time which heals us.

Death | Life | Life | Time |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is reason which breeds pride and reflection which fortifies it; reason which turns man inward into himself; reason which separates him from everything which troubles or affects him. It is philosophy which isolates a man, and prompts him to say in secret at the sight of another suffering: 'Perish if you will; I am safe.' No longer can anything but dangers to society in general disturb the tranquil sleep of the philosopher or drag him from his bed. A fellow-man may with impunity be murdered under his window, for the philosopher has only to put his hands over his ears and argue a little with himself to prevent nature, which rebels inside him, from making him identify himself with the victim of the murder. The savage man entirely lacks this admirable talent, and for want of wisdom and reason he always responds recklessly to the first promptings of human feeling.

Little | Man | Philosophy | Pride | Reason | Reflection | Society | Troubles | Wisdom | Society | Victim |

John Donne

One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Death |

John Antoine Petit-Senn

Our interests are grains of opium to our consciences, but they only put it to sleep for a terrible awakening.

Katha Upanishad

Knowing that great and all-pervading Self by which one sees (the objects) both in the sleep and the waking states, the intelligent man grieves no more.

Man | Self |

Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL

Those who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. But those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation.

Sorrow | Will | Work |

Ludwig Wittgenstein, fully Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein

Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.

Science | Wonder |

Marian Wright Edelman

Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night.

Money | Soul | Work |