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

Thomas Carlyle

It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God’s heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations.

Day | Death | Difficulty | God | Heart | Heaven | Hero | Life | Life | Man | Taste | Wrong |

Tom Brown, Jr.

Modern thought is the prison of the soul and stands between man and his spiritual mind. The logical mind cannot know absolute faith, nor can it know pure thought, for the logic feeds upon logic and does not accept things that cannot be known and proven by the flesh. Thus man has created a prison for himself and for his spirit, because he lacks belief and purity of thought. Faith needs no proof nor logic, yet man needs proof before he can have faith. Man then has created a cycle which cannot be broken, for where proof is needed, there can be no faith.

Absolute | Belief | Faith | Logic | Man | Mind | Prison | Purity | Soul | Spirit | Thought | Thought |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Men, generally going with the stream, seldom judge for themselves, and purity of taste is almost as rare as talent.

Men | Purity | Taste |

William Hazlitt

It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.

Better | Taste |

Tom Brown, Jr.

Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong; it all depends on how we judge with our prejudice. Listening in purity and emptiness judges not, only learns.

Good | Listening | Nothing | Prejudice | Purity | Right | Wrong |

William Shakespeare

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

Taste |

William Hazlitt

Wonder at the first sign of works of art may be the effect of ignorance and novelty; but real admiration and permanent delight in them are the growth of taste and knowledge.

Admiration | Art | Growth | Ignorance | Knowledge | Novelty | Taste | Wonder | Art |

William Shakespeare

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. Julius Caesar (Caesar at II, ii)

Death | Men | Taste | Will |

Anne Lamott

Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it, and find out the truth about who you are.

Circumstances | Good | Illusion | Life | Life | People | Power | Taste | Truth |

Edith Sitwell, fully Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.

Taste | Vice |

Felix Adler

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

Church | Purity | Religion |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.

Dispute | Life | Life | Taste |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

Taste |

Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that I know; secondly, what I know. In self consciousness these are merged in one; for Spirit knows itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realise itself; to make itself actually that which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of that which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in itself the whole nature of the tree, and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that History.

Abstract | Appreciation | Consciousness | Energy | Knowledge | Nature | Self | Spirit | Taste | Appreciation |

Grenville Kleiser

Cultivate fine taste and discrimination in your choice of things. Get a right idea of values. Material possessions that you do not need and cannot use may be only an encumbrance. Let your guiding rule be not how much but how good. A thing you do not want is dear at any price. Avoid surplus age. Choose things that express your own individuality. You must possess your things or they will possess you. Look for quality rather than quantity. Unnecessary possessions bring unnecessary care and responsibility. Excess is waste. Have an occasional stocktaking and eliminate unsparingly.

Care | Choice | Excess | Need | Possessions | Right | Rule | Surplus | Taste | Will |

Isaac D'Israeli

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

Mediocrity | Taste |

Henry J. Kaiser

Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you.

Competition | Taste |

Horace Fletcher, nicknamed "The Great Masticator"

Optimism can be prescribed and applied as a medicine, and is a remedy in proportion to its purity and the wisdom displayed in its use.

Purity | Wisdom |