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

Gustave Flaubert

One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.

Better | Fear | Relationship | Will | World |

Gustave Flaubert

Nevertheless the flames did die down -- whether exhausted from lack of supplies or choked by excessive feeding. Little by little, love was quenched by absence; regret was smothered by routine; and the fiery glow that had reddened her pale sky grew gray and gradually vanished... But the storm kept raging, her passion burned itself to ashes, no help was forthcoming, no new sun rose to the horizon. Night closed in completely around her, and she was left alone in a horrible void of piercing cold.

Fortune | World | Worth |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.

World |

Gustave Flaubert

Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

Pain |

Gustave Flaubert

We think of women at every age: while still children, we fondle with a na‹ve sensuality the breasts of those grown-up girls kissing us and cuddling us in their arms; at the age of ten, we dream of love; at fifteen, love comes along; at sixty, it is still with us, and if dead men in their tombs have any thought in their heads, it is how to make their way underground to the nearby grave, lift the shroud of the dear departed women, and mingle with her in her sleep

Little | Sound | World |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

World |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious.

Pleasure | Understanding |

Haile Selassie

Here is our opportunity and our challenge. If the nuclear powers are prepared to declare a truce, let us seize the moment to strengthen the institutions and procedures which will serve as the means for the pacific settlement of disputes among men.

Pleasure | Will |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction... governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down ... Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. It?s one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.

Evil | Man | Pleasure | Understanding |

Italian Proverbs

No good thing is failure and no evil thing success.

World |

Italian Proverbs

The friendship of the great is fraternity with lions.

Culture | Evolution | Religion | Research | Science | Theories | World |

Italian Proverbs

Of the great and of the dead either speak will or say nothing.

Control | Failure | Patience | Wisdom | World | Failure |

Italian Proverbs

None so deaf as those who will not hear.

Beauty | Gloom | Humanity | Power | Soul | Spirit | Will | Beauty |

Italian Proverbs

Saying is one thing, doing another.

Goals | People | Pleasure | Progress | Success | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Much smoke, and little roast.

Life | Life | Television | World | Understand |

Italian Proverbs

One must have been controlled in the same situation one wishes to properly control others.

Change | People | World | Think |

Italian Proverbs

Take heed of enemies reconciled and of meat twice boiled.

Power | Revolution | Will | World |

Italian Proverbs

The devil will tempt Lucifer.

World |

Italian Proverbs

Smooth words make smooth ways.

World |

Italian Proverbs

That that comes of a cat will catch mice.

Day | Faith | Reality | Reason | Will | World |