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

Jules de Goncourt, fully Jules Huot de Goncourt

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite! There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.

Baseness | Envy | History | Mankind |

Robert Jastrow

When you study the history of life, and step back to look at this long history with the perspective of several hundred million years, you see a flow and direction in it - from the simple to the complex, from lower forms to higher, and always towards greater intelligence--and you wonder: can this history of events leading to man, with its clear direction, yet be undirected?

Events | History | Intelligence | Life | Life | Man | Study | Wonder |

Fritz Künkel

Immense hidden powers seem to lurk in the unconscious depths of even the most common man - indeed, of all people without exception. It is these powers, when put under pressure, that are responsible for all great creative efforts. The men who make history are those who - consciously or unconsciously - turn the switch on the inner switchboards of human character. Pour out all your fears and anxieties, malicious joy and greed and hatred, and you will be astonished at the terrific amount of power which is pent up in your unconscious mind. We can release this power and transform it from negative into positive power, only by bringing into the open, into the light of consciousness, and by accepting ourselves as we are, even though the mountains of debts seem to crush us. This is the principle of honesty. And it is clear that it can be applied only if connected with the principle of faith.

Character | Consciousness | Faith | Greed | History | Honesty | Joy | Light | Man | Men | Mind | People | Power | Will |

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Although the tongue of God is busy speaking through all things, yet in order to speak to the deaf ears of many among us, it is necessary for Him to speak through the lips of man. He has done this all through the history of man, every great teacher of the past having been this guiding Spirit living the life of God in human guise. In other words, their human guise consists of various coats worn by the same person, who appeared to be different in each. Shiva, Buddha, Rama, Krishna, on the other side, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad on the other; and many more, known or unknown to history, always one and the same person.

God | History | Life | Life | Man | Order | Past | Spirit | Words | God | Teacher |

John Koster

Darwin’s and Huxley’s picture of man’s place in the universe prepared the way for the Holocaust… Darwin the scientist directly inspired Nietzsche’s superman theory and the Nazi corollary that some people were subhuman… People have to learn to stop thinking of other people as machines and learn to think of them as men and women possessed of souls… History doesn’t need another one hundred million deaths to prove that scientific atheism is a form of mental illness.

Atheism | History | Machines | Man | Men | Need | People | Thinking | Universe | Learn | Think |

Douglas MacArthur

The history of failure in war can be summed up in two words: Too Late.

Failure | History | War | Words | Failure |

John Macmurray

The plainest historical evidence for the effectiveness of religion as a positive social form lies in the history of the Jews.

Evidence | History | Religion |

Andrzej Milczanowski

It’s not enough to be right. That’s too little. It’s also important to be strong. The history of the world shows that more often people who were right lost than won.

Enough | History | Important | Little | People | Right | World |

Thomas Paine

[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.

Bible | History | Mankind | Wickedness |

Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

All big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.

History |

Raymond Queneau

Happy nations have no history. History is the study of mankind's misfortunes.

Happy | History | Mankind | Nations | Study |

Michael Pupin, fully Michael Idvosky Pupin

The human soul, in so far as science can penetrate, is the last chapter of cosmic history as far as it has been written. It is in the soul that Divinity resides.

Divinity | History | Science | Soul |

Winwood Reade, fully William Winwood Reade

The history of morals is the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from the nation to all communities living under the same government, civil or religious, then people of the same colour, and finally to all mankind.

Government | History | Mankind | People |

Jonathan Schell, fully Jonathan Edward Schell

The world's history is constant, like the laws of nature, and simple, like the souls of men. The same conditions continually produce the same results.

History | Men | Nature | World |

Haile Selassie

Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.

Better | Evil | History | Indifference | Justice | Silence |

Haile Selassie

Outside the kingdom of the Lord there is no nation which is grater than any other. God and history will remember your judgment.

God | History | Lord | Will | God |