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

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Hero |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Disease is a physical process that generally begins that equality which death completes.

Consciousness | Death | Entertainment | Equality | Gloom | Glory | Hero | Little | Man | Mortal | Nothing | Will | Wit | Instruction |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power.

Father | Hero | Man |

Simone Weil

To claim that theft or adultery or lying are evil simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity.

Hero | Order |

Anthony Hope, fully Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins

"I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?" said my brother's wife.

People | World |

Stephan Jay Gould

Even the standard example of ancient nonsense - the debate about angels on pinheads - makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number

Enemy | Evidence | Hero | Regard | Spirit |

Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White

To know everything there is to know about one subject is the secret of happiness.

People | Thinking |

Thomas Carlyle

A man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for; what suits his constitution; and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books.

Hero | Man |

Thomas Carlyle

High Air-castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge.

Admiration | Hero | Men | Nothing | Rest | Worship |

Thomas Jefferson

We ought not to schismatize on either men or measures. Principles alone can justify that.

Better | Fault | Fidelity | Generosity | History | Man | Murder | Reading | Sentiment | Story | Truth | Murder | Fault |

Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

Never had he felt the joy of the word more sweetly, never had he known so clearly that Eros dwells in language.

Cowardice | Cruelty | Loathing | Love | Lust | Security | War | Cruelty |

Thomas Merton

Peace is not, after all, something you work for, or “fight for.” It is indeed “fighting for peace” that starts all the wars.

Fidelity | Labor | Purity | Truth |

Thomas Nagel

I'm actually surprised how well we've done. We've made more progress in the first 100 days of this one than any other joint venture I've been involved in.

Absurd | Irony | Reason |

Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

Says Spinoza: When it seems to us anything in the nature funny or silly, obscure or evil it is because we do not have only little knowledge of things, and we are ignorant system of nature and cohesion as a whole, and we want to hold things according to our thinking and our opinions, even though what he sees as our mind bad or evil is not evil or bad for the system and the laws of nature comprehensive college. But in relation to the laws of our own nature separate. As for the word of good and evil, it does not indicate something positive in itself, because the one thing the same may be simultaneously good or evil, or neither such as music, for example, it is better for Almnaqbd self evil for Alnaúh sad and lost people seemed to be his. It is not good or evil for the Dead

Dispute | Effort | Fighting | Goals | Hero | Story | Happiness |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

Being serious or being a good fellow has got nothing to do with running this country. If the breaks are with you, you could be a laughing hyena and still have a great administration.

Hero |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

The man that found the 726-carat diamond in Africa, received $350,000 for it and wants to buy a farm and silk hat. Well, I can understand a man perhaps being eccentric enough to want to own a silk hat.

Hero |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.

Hero | Life | Life | Men | Progress | Reason |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

I will sleep no more but arise, you oceans that have been calm within me! How I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.

Land | Will |

Washington Irving

The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.

Hero |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

The uncritical relations of the dead…

Hero | Law | Suffering |