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

John Barth, fully John Simmons Barth

Nothing is intrinsically valuable; the value of everything is attributed to it, assigned to it from outside the thing itself, by people.

Nothing | People | Wisdom | Value |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

The man who seeks one, and but one, thing in life may hope to achieve it; but he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, only reaps, from the hopes which he sows, a harvest of barren regrets.

Hope | Life | Life | Man | Wisdom |

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

If chance is defined as an event produced by random motion without any causal nexus, I would say there is no such thing as chance.

Chance | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world either to get a good name, or to supply the want of it.

Good | Policy | Wisdom | World |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If you get simple beauty and nought else, you get about the best thing God invents.

Beauty | God | Wisdom | Beauty | God |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

The man who has acquired the habit of study, though for only one hour every day in the year, and keeps to the one thing studied till it is mastered, will be startled to see the way he has made at the end of a twelvemonth.

Day | Habit | Man | Study | Will | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.

Miracles | Wisdom |

Samuel Butler

Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo, not for a man.

Life | Life | Man | Question | Wisdom | Worth |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

There is no such thing as luck. It's a fancy name for being always at our duty, and so sure to be ready when good time comes.

Duty | Good | Luck | Time | Wisdom |

Edward Carpenter

Enter into the life which is eternal, pass through the gate of indifference into the palace of mastery, through the door of love out into the great open of deliverance.

Eternal | Indifference | Life | Life | Love | Wisdom |

Pablo Casals, fully Pau Casals i Defilló

The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one proposes to do.

Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |

George Barrell Cheever

For health and the constant enjoyment of life, give me a keen and ever present sense of humor; it is the next best thing to an abiding faith in providence.

Enjoyment | Faith | Health | Humor | Life | Life | Present | Providence | Sense | Wisdom |

John Caird

Carry religious principles into common life, and common life will lose its transitoriness. The world passes away. The things are seen as temporal. Soon business, with all its cares and anxieties, the whole “unprofitable stir and fever of the world” will be to us a thing of the past. But religion does something better than sigh and moan over the perishableness of earthly things. It finds in them the seeds of immortality.

Better | Business | Immortality | Life | Life | Past | Principles | Religion | Will | Wisdom | World |

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches

For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow-men in peace-time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out.

Absolute | Indifference | Men | Passion | Peace | Time | War | Wisdom | World |