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

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.

Action | Justice | Life | Life | Object | Peace | Principles | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Will | World |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history. It represents the experiences made by men and women, the experiences of those who do and live under that flag.

Example | Force | Influence | Man | Need | Peace | Right | Will |

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape.

Consequences | Desire | Dread | Liberty | Mind |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

It is easier to change the location of a cemetery, than to change the school curriculum.

Authority | Civilization | Nations | Peace | People | Right | Rights | World |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw the Government of the United States.

Man | Peace | Wrong |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Only free people can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Equality | Peace |

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.

Day | Decision | Mind | Will |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.

Peace |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

This war, in its inception was a commercial and industrial war. It was not a political war.

Equality | Memory | Peace | Right |

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Find fault with thyself rather than with others.

Mind | Peace |

Hugh Blair

Adversity, how blunt are all the arrows of thy quiver in comparison with those of guilt.

Age | Benevolence | Conduct | Evil | Good | Hope | Kindness | Love | Man | Old age | Peace | Respect | Time | Will | Respect | Old |

Hugh Blair

It is pride which plies the world with so much harshness and severity. - We are as rigorous to offences as if we had never offended.

Impression | Mind | Wonder | Words |

Hugh Blair

Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age. - It degrades parts and learning, obscures the luster of every accomplishment, and sinks us into contempt. - The path of falsehood is a perplexing maze. - One artifice leads on to another, till, as the intricacy of the labyrinth increases, we are left entangled in our own snare.

Future | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Nature | Power | Time |

Hugh Blair

The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them, and they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.

Mind | Suspense |

Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden

Imagine a nineteenth-century Jane Fonda visiting the Oglala Sioux in the Black Hills before the battle at Little Big Horn. Imagine her examining Crazy Horse's arrows or climbing upon Sitting Bull's horse. Such behavior by a well-known actress no doubt would have infuriated Gen. George Armstrong Custer, but what would the rest of us feel today

Hope | Nothing | Peace | Politics | War |

Hugh Blair

Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.

Action | Attention | Character | Competition | Enemy | Enjoyment | Foresight | Industry | Life | Life | Mind | Pleasure | Present | Prudence | Prudence | Wealth | World | Youth | Youth |

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 |

Tom Brown, Jr.

This earth is a garden, this life a banquet, and it's time we realized that it was given to all life, animal and man, to enjoy.

Duty | Journey | Mind |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

People use the word "natural" ... What is natural to me is these botanical species which interact directly with the nervous system. What I consider artificial is 4 years at Harvard, and the Bible, and Saint Patrick's cathedral, and the sunday school teachings.

Mind |