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

Wendell Berry

Nothing is given that is not Taken, and nothing taken That was not first gift. The gift is balanced by its total loss, and yet, And yet the light breaks in, Heaven seizing its moments That are at once its own and yours.

Day | Future | Government | Hope | Little | Love | Man | Mind | Mystery | Praise | Will | Work | Government | Approval |

Wendell Berry

I can no longer forget that loss and illness and trouble, however a person may exploit them, cannot be exploited without being suffered.

Ignorance | Nature | Present | Weakness | World |

Wendell Berry

Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.

Man | Praise | Approval |

W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

How shall Integrity face Oppression? What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception, Decency in the face of Insult, Self-Defense before Blows? How shall Desert and Accomplishment meet Despising, Detraction, and Lies? What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force? There are so many answers and so contradictory; and such differences for those on the one hand who meet questions similar to this once a year or once a decade, and those who face them hourly and daily.

Criticism | Democracy | Government | Soul | Government |

W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

Evil | Existence | Strength | Weakness |

Vita Sackville-West, fully The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson

Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel.

Weakness | Old |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too.

Criticism | Present |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

He who now talks about the "freedom of the press" goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

Criticism | Freedom | Ideas | Nothing | Will |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

International unity of the workers is more important than the national.

Criticism |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The most important thing when ill is to never lose heart.

Criticism | Important |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Freedom of criticism is undoubtedly the most fashionable slogan at the present time, and the one most frequently employed in the controversies between socialists and democrats in all countries.

Criticism | Freedom | Industry | People |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

This struggle must be organized, according to “all the rules of the art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the movement does not make the organization of this struggle less necessary. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary.

Criticism | Fear | Freedom | Majority | Resentment | Theoretical |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The chief distinguishing feature of Russia in regard to the point we are examining is that the very beginning of the spontaneous working-class movement, on the one hand, and of the turn of progressive public opinion towards Marxism, on the other, was marked by the combination of manifestly heterogeneous elements under a common flag to fight the common enemy (the obsolete social and political world outlook).

Criticism | Freedom |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health.

Absurd | Wants | Weakness |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

Weakness |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously he will not be put off by that opposition.

Art | Opinion | Praise | Work | Art |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Lord, how unutterably disgusting life is! What dirty tricks it plays us, one moment free; the next, this.

Enough | God | Life | Life | Little | Praise | God |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Not that she was striking; not beautiful at all; there was nothing picturesque about her; she never said anything specially clever; there she was, however; there she was.

Beauty | Day | Ends | Husband | Mind | Praise | Reading | Time | Beauty | Think |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment.

Blame | Fame | People | Poetry | Praise | Writing |

Zoroaster, aka Zarathustra or Zarathushtra Spitama NULL

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

Deeds | Evil | Good | Praise | Deeds |