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

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

Of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

Attention | Vice |

Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen

The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness.

Birth | Body | Consequences | Culture | Deference | Distinction | Example | Force | Indulgence | Leisure | Lesson | Men | Office | Practice | Regard | Regulation | Respect | Speech | Respect | Vice |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

The person who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

Conduct | Rule | Virtue | Virtue |

Hugh Blair

If you delay till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day, you overcharge the morrow with a burden which belongs not to it. You load the wheels of time, and prevent it from carrying you along smoothly. He who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows out the plan, carries on a thread which will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all his affairs. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, all things lie huddled together in one chaos, which admits neither of distribution nor review.

Improvement | Mind | Taste | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Thucydides NULL

They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.

Change | Future | Past | Present | Right | Service | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth |

Hugh Blair

Such is the infatuation of self-love, that, though in the general doctrine of the vanity of the world all men agree, yet almost every one flatters himself that his own case is it to be an exception from the common rule.

Good | Sentiment | Simplicity | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |

Hugh Blair

By indulging this fretful temper you alienate those on whose affection much of your comfort depends.

Cheerfulness | Dignity | Enjoyment | Folly | Joy | Mind | Mirth | Pleasure | Religion | Spirit | Struggle | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | World | Happiness |

Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

Okay, we have just passed through the Michener zone, and , assuming that narcolepsy hasn’t leadened our lids, that we’ve not been Lao-this’d and Lao-that’ed into a comatose state, we’re now in a position, as we rejoin the narrative flow, to conclude that Fan Nan Nan was a Lao Theung community. Are we not?

Happy | People | Waiting | World | Vice |

William Shakespeare

Acquaint her with the danger of my state; Implore her, in my voice, that she makes friends to the strict deputy; bid herself assay him. I have great hope in that; for in her youth there is a prone and speechless dialect, Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art When she will play with reason and discourse, And well she can persuade. Measure for Measure, Scene ii

Respect | Rites | Virtue | Virtue | Respect |

William Shakespeare

A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon than love that would seem hid; love's night is noon. Twelfth Night, Act iii, Scene 1

Precedent | Vice |

William Shakespeare

And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say that we shall see and know our friends in heaven. If that be true, I shall see my boy again, for since the birth of Cain, the first male child, To him that did but yesterday suspire, There was not such a gracious creature born. King John, Act iii, Scene 4

Virtue | Virtue |

William Shakespeare

AUTOLYCUS: I am a poor fellow, sir. CAMILLO: Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee.

Vice |

William Shakespeare

All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him by inch-meal a disease! The tempest, act ii, Scene 2

Object | Pleasure | Virtue | Virtue |

William Shakespeare

Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves do strike at my injustice.

Amends | Sin | Virtue | Virtue |

William Shakespeare

Appear thou in the likeness of sigh; Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied! Cry but 'Ay me! pronounce but 'love' and 'dove': Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nickname for her purblind son and heir Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so true When King Cophetus loved the beggar maid! Romeo and Juliet, Act ii, Scene 1

Comedy | Heart | Sin | Teach | Vice |

William Shakespeare

Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow, ang'ring itself and others.

Calumny | Virtue | Virtue |

William Shakespeare

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France; For ere thou can'st report I will be there, The thunder of my cannon shall be heard; So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath.

Calumny | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

William Shakespeare

Because I will not do the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; I will live a bachelor.

Heart | Sound | Thought | Thought | Vice |

William Shakespeare

Can you not see? Or will ye not observe the strangeness of his altered countenance? With what a majesty he bears himself, how insolent of late he is become, how proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself? We know the time since he was mild and affable, and if we did but glance a far-off look, immediately he was upon his knee, that all the court admired him for submission; but meet him now and, be it in the morn, when everyone will give the time of day, he knits his brow and shows an angry eye and passeth by with stiff unbowèd knee, disdaining duty that to us belongs. Small curs are not regarded when they grin, but great men tremble when the lion roars, and Humphrey is no little man in England. First note that he is near you in descent, and should you fall, he is the next will mount. Me seemeth then it is no policy, respecting what a rancorous mind he bears and his advantage following your decease, that he should come about your royal person or be admitted to your highness' council. By flattery hath he won the commons' heart; and when he please to make commotion, 'tis to be feared they all will follow him. Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted. Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden and choke the herbs for want of husbandry. The reverent care I bear unto my lord made me collect these dangers in the duke. If it be fond, call it a woman's fear; which fear if better reasons can supplant, I will subscribe and say I wronged the duke. My lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York, reprove my allegation if you can, or else conclude my words effectual. Henvry VI, Part II, Act iii, Scene 1

Order | Virtue | Virtue | Will |