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

Elif Safak

No reason to feel depressed about being depressed. A depression can be a golden opportunity to collect the pieces and build ourselves anew. Global Souls are always on the move, nomads at heart, connected to various cities, commuters between cultures, both from here and everywhere.

Little | Sense | World | Afraid |

Elif Safak

Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.

Change | Love | Rule | Search |

William Shakespeare

Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.

Men | Reason | Rest |

William Shakespeare

Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel; then what should war be?

Business | Mercy | Sense | Sorrow | Business |

William Shakespeare

Set honor in one eye and death i' the other And I will look on both indifferently; For let the gods so speed me as I love The name of honor more than I fear death.

Ends |

William Shakespeare

ROSALIND: I' faith, his hair is of a good color. CELIA: An excellent color. Your chestnut was ever the only color.

Love | Reason |

William Shakespeare

Sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields.

Capability | Reason |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Only the young and stupid are confident about sex and romance.

Body | Decision | Experience | Force | Friend | Little | People | Wrong | Govern | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Do I really deserve this pleasure? This is American, too-the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness.

Belief | Books | Care | Decision | Diligence | Divinity | Faith | Reason | Religion | Universe | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality.

Experience |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I felt like I was some kind of primitive spring-loaded machine, placed under far more tension than it had ever been built to sustain, about to blast apart at great danger to anyone standing nearby. I imagined my body parts flying off my torso in order to escape the volcanic core of unhappiness that had become: me.

Duty | Sense | Happiness |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never even dared to admit that you wanted—an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with the hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but who now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore—despite...

Chance | Divinity | Earth | Experience | Life | Life | Pain | Purpose | Purpose | Search | Suffering |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I was a veritable Johnny Appleseed of grand expectations, and all I reaped for my trouble was a harvest of bitter fruit.

Balance | Devotion | Enjoyment | Experience | Good | Longing | Pleasure | Space | Learn |

Elizabeth Gilbert

If you do not know where you are or what clan you are, how will you find the balance?

Experience | Truth |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I want to have a lasting experience of God', I told him. 'Sometimes I feel like I understand the divinity of this world, but then I lose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.

Divinity | Experience | Understand |

William Shakespeare

Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds.

Ends |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Creative people always suffer from depression because we're so super sensitive and special?

Challenge | Comfort | Enough | Humanity | Means | Money | Need | People | Pleasure | Search | Skill | System | Time | Will | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet-to-come surprises.

Accomplishment | Beauty | Experience | Means | Need | Nothing | Order | Beauty |

Elizabeth Gilbert

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here’s how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man’s chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was.

Awareness | Experience | Life | Life | Awareness |

Elizabeth Gilbert

But I don't know how much more socializing I can do, Felipe. I only have the one dress. People will start to notice that I'm wearing the same thing all the time. You're young and beautiful, darling. You only need the one dress.

Energy | Good | Love | Money | Qualities | Sense | Will |