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

Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

Doubt | Duty | Freedom | Knowing | Philosophy | Progress | Responsibility | Teach | Value |

Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified

Doubt | Learning | People | Progress | Question | Search |

Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

in accidents blindness chance conviction cosmology day death despair doubt feeling force harmony heart intelligence listening music Peace purpose reason Silence universe

Chance | Day | Death | Despair | Doubt | Force | Harmony | Heart | Intelligence | Listening | Music | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Silence |

Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

I paused to listen to the silence. My breath, crystallized as it passed my cheeks, drifted on a breeze gentler than a whisper. The wind vane pointed toward the South Pole. Presently the wind cups ceased their gentle turning as the cold killed the breeze. My frozen breath hung like a cloud overhead. The day was dying, the night was being born-but with great peace. Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence-a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps. It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe. The conviction came that that rhythm was too orderly, too harmonious, too perfect to be a product of blind chance-that, therefore, there must be purpose in the whole and that man was part of that whole and not an accidental offshoot. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of a man's despair and found it groundless. . . . For those who seek it, there is inexhaustible evidence of an all-pervading intelligence. Man is not alone.

Day | Despair | Doubt | Enough | Evidence | Heart | Man | Music | Oneness | Purpose | Purpose |

Richard Wright, fully Richard Nathaniel Wright

Living in the past with regret is like killing yourself on the inside and throwing them to darkness.

Past | Regret |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

I seriously doubt if we will ever have another war. This is probably the very last one.

Doubt | Will |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

There is no doubt that Krushchev would have been a superb poker player. First, he is out to win. Second, like any good poker player, he plans ahead so that he can win the big pots. He likes to bluff, but he knows that if you bluff on the small pots and fail consistently to produce the cards, you must expect your opponent to call your bluff on the big pots.

Doubt | Good |

Robertson Davies

I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing.

Age | Bravery | Fighting | Humanity | Need | People | Think |

Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd

There is no doubt that constitutional freedoms will never be abolished in one fell swoop, for the American people cherish their freedoms, and would not tolerate such a loss if they could perceive it. But the erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault but rather as a gradual, noxious creeping, cloaked in secrecy, and glossed over by reassurances of greater security.

Doubt | Freedom | People | Will | Loss |

Robert Browning

Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.

Doubt | God | Reason | Rest | God |

Robert Browning

All we have gained then by our unbelief is a life of doubt diversified by faith, for one of faith diversified by doubt: we called the chess-board white -- we call it black.

Doubt | Faith | Life | Life | Unbelief |

Robert J. McCracken, D.D.

Deliberately to pursue happiness is not the surest way of achieving it. Seek it for its own sake and I doubt whether you will find it.

Doubt | Will | Happiness |

Robert Penn Warren

After the Dinner Party - You two sit at the table late, each, now and then, Twirling a near-empty wine glass to watch the last red Liquid blimb up the crystalline spin to the last moment when Centrifugality fails: with nothing now said. What is left to say when the last logs sag and wink? The dark outside is streaked with the casual snowflake Of winter’s demise, all guests long gone home, and you think Of others who never again can come to partake Of food, wine, laughter, and philosophy— Though tonight one guest has quoted a killing phrase we owe To a lost one whose grin, in eternal atrophy, Now in dark celebrates some last unworded jest none can know. Now a chair scrapes, sudden, on tiles, and one of you Moves soundless, as in hypnotic certainty, The length of table. Stands there a moment or two, Then sits, reaches out a hand, open and empty. How long it seems till a hand finds that hand there laid, While ash, still glowing, crumbles, and silence is such That the crumbling of ash is audible. Now naught’s left unsaid Of the old heart-concerns, the last, tonight, which Had been of the absent children, whose bright gaze Over-arches the future’s horizon, in the mist of your prayers, The last log is black, while ash beneath displays No last glow. You snuff candles. Soon the old stairs Will creak with your grave and synchronized tread as each mounts To a briefness of light, then true weight of darkness, and then That heart-dimness in which neither joy nor sorrow counts. Even so, one hand gropes out for another, again.

Eternal | Grave | Guests | Joy | Nothing | Silence | Sorrow | Old |

Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you. For I think that Thought is all; Truth's a minion of the mind; Love's ideal comes at call; As ye seek so shall ye find. But ye must not seek too far; Things are never what they seem: Let a star be just a star, And a woman -- just a dream. O you Dreamers, proud and pure, You have gleaned the sweet of life! Golden truths that shall endure Over pain and doubt and strife. I would rather be a fool Living in my Paradise, Than the leader of a school, Sadly sane and weary wise. O you Cynics with your sneers, Fallen brains and hearts of brass, Tweak me by my foolish ears, Write me down a simple ass! I'll believe the real "you" Is the "you" without a taint; I'll believe each woman too, But a slightly damaged saint. Yes, I'll smoke my cigarette, Vestured in my garb of dreams, And I'll borrow no regret; All is gold that golden gleams. So I'll charm my solitude With the faith that Life is blest, Brave and noble, bright and good,

Doubt | Dreams | Faith | Gold | Life | Life | Men | Pain | Thought | Woman | Leader | Think | Thought | Truths |

Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn

Anyone approaching the Sermon on the Mount is wise to remember a saying from Mark Twain, who was more honest about his troubles than most of us are about ours. He had heard people complain that the Bible is hard to understand. But he said he was bothered more by the parts of the Bible that he could understand than by the parts he could not understand. This statement fits the Sermon on the Mount. Occasionally, as we study it, we find ourselves bothered by the first problem. We do not understand, and we wish we might know with certainty exactly what Jesus meant. But more often the words are so clear that we can have no doubt about their meaning. Then the real trouble comes, because we know what a change they call for in our lives, and we hesitate to make that change. We feel uneasy when we face a description of ourselves as God would have us be.

Bible | Change | Doubt | God | People | Study | Troubles | Wise | Words | Trouble | God | Bible | Understand |

Ronald A. Heifetz

Steering an organization through times of change can be hazardous, and it has been the ruin of many a leader.

Distrust | Doubt | Hate |

Rudolf Driekurs

Man does not see reality as it is, but only as he perceives it, and his perception may be mistaken or biased.

Ability | Age | Children | Doubt | Justify | Prejudice | Strength |

Rudyard Kipling

Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men!

Rudyard Kipling

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, / And - every - single - one - of- them - is - right!

Glory | Thankfulness | Will | Work |