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

Robert Bly

There is a privacy I love in this snowy night. Driving around, I will waste more time.

Love | Waste | Will |

Robert Aitken, fully Robert Baker Aitken

With dignity and freedom we can collaborate, labor together, on small farms and in cooperatives of all kinds

Dignity | Freedom | Labor |

Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller

Dignity assures belonging. It's more than respect or courtesy. To live in dignity affirms, nurtures, and protects. Dignity is the social counterpart of interpersonal love.

Dignity | Respect | Respect |

Robert Gordon Sproul

Essentially Americanism, which in democracy, is a moraland spiritual adventure, concerned primarily with a sound and workable philosophy of life, summed up in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, respect for human personality, and recognition of the dignity and value of the individual. In his brilliant statement on The Coming Victory of Democracy, Thomas Mann tells us he believes in democracy because he believes in freedom, and he believes in freedom because he believes in human nature and the dignity of man, who is more than a depersonalized unit in the state. Man is a spiritual being whom it is the duty of the state to serve. He is more than a slave to be kept in order and submission by the crack of a master's whip. "The essential man," says he, "is not the creature who hurls down bombs on children, but the mind that devised the flying machine, the seeker and builder, not the destroyer."

Brotherhood | Democracy | Dignity | Duty | Freedom | God | Human nature | Man | Mind | Nature | Order | Philosophy | Respect | Sound | Submission | Respect | God | Value |

Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, aka Vatican II

Venerable Brothers, Mother Church rejoices that by the singular gift of Divine Providence, the long awaited day has finally dawned. Here at St Peter’s tomb, under the auspices of the Virgin Mother of God... the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is solemnly opened... ‘The greatest concern of the ecumenical Council is that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more effectively. That doctrine embraces the whole of man, body and soul. And since man is a pilgrim on this earth, it commands him to move steadily towards heaven... it is necessary that the Church should never depart from the sacred treasure of the truth inherited from the fathers. But at the same time, she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life in the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate... ‘The substance of the ancient doctrine of the Deposit of Faith is one thing, but the way in which it is presented is another.

Dignity | Earth | Guidance | Heaven | Moderation | Need | Obedience | Prayer | Serenity | Spirit | Will | Wisdom | World | Zeal | Moderation | Guidance |

Sen T’Sen, aka Seng T'San, Jianzhi Sengcan, Kanchi Sosan, Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen

The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, Except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love Does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. A tenth of an inch's difference, And heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes, Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike - This is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of the Way is not understood, Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose... Pursue not the outer entanglements, Dwell not in the inner void; Be serene in the oneness of things, And dualism vanishes of itself. When you strive to gain quiescence by stopping motion, The quiescence so gained is ever in motion. So long as you tarry in such dualism, How can you realize oneness? And when oneness is not thoroughly grasped, Loss is sustained in two ways: The denying of external reality is the assertion of it, And the assertion of Emptiness (the Absolute) is the denying of it... Transformations going on in the empty world that confronts us Appear to be real because of Ignorance. Do not strive to seek after the True, Only cease to cherish opinions. The two exist because of the One; But hot not even to this One. When a mind is not disturbed, The ten thousand things offer no offense... If an eye never falls asleep, All dreams will cease of themselves; If the Mind retains its absoluteness, The ten thousand things are of one substance. When the deep mystery of Suchness is fathomed, All of a sudden we forget the external entanglements; When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, We return to the origin and remain where we have always been... One in all, All in One - If only this is realized, No more worry about not being perfect! When Mind and each believing mind are not divided, And undivided are each believing mind and Mind, This is where words fail, For it is not of the past, present or future.

Church | Commitment | Dignity | Duty | Experience | Grace | Individual | Life | Life | Openness | Understand |

Silvio Pellico

Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.

Adventure | Ambition | Circumstances | Contentment | Debt | Dignity | God | Hunger | Life | Life | Mediocrity | Men | Mortal | Nobility | Poverty | Society | Soul | Wealth | World | Ambition | Society | God |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

It is time to realize we are too great a nation for small dreams. We're not -- as some would have us believe -- doomed to an inevitable fate.

Dignity | Freedom | History |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

The more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. What coal miner or assembly-line worker jumps at the offer of overtime when he knows Uncle Sam is going to take 60 percent or more of his extra pay?

Better | Cause | Dignity | Earth | Freedom | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | War | Will | Work | World |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?

Dignity | Earth | Land | Man | People | Price |

Samuel Adams

Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all?

Day | Dignity | Freedom | Men |

Samson Raphael Hirsch

However important it is that love shall precede marriage, it is far more important that it shall continue after marriage.

Dignity | Enthusiasm | God | Man | Mankind | Mind | Poetry | God |

Samuel Adams

The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. - Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.

Aid | Character | Confidence | Despondency | Determination | Dignity | Heaven | Justice | Liberty | People | Public | Rights | Spirit | Will | World |

Sam Keen

To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.

Cost | Dignity | Honor | People | Question | Right | Sense | Society | Wrong | Society |

Samuel Smiles

It is energy - the central element of which is will - that produces the miracle that is enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is what is called force of character and the sustaining power of all great action.

Character | Dignity | Power | Qualities | Rank | Will | Old |

Simone Weil

The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

Need | Solitude | Soul |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

We went back to the Ritz bar and Scriassine ordered two whiskies. I liked the taste; it was something different. And as for Scriassine, he, too, had the advantage of being new to me. The whole evening had been unexpected, and it seemed to emit an ancient fragrance of youth. Long ago there had been nights that were unlike others; you would meet unknown people who would say unexpected thing. And, occasionally, something would happen. So many things had happened in the last five years - to the world, to France, to Paris, to others. But not to me. Would nothing ever happen to me again?

Action | Aesthetic | Dignity | Existence | Fate | Freedom | Hate | Heart | History | Light | Man | Nothing | Order | Present | Regard | Will | World | Fate | Victim |

Stephan Jay Gould

Yet I also appreciate that we cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well—for we will not fight to save what we do not love (but only appreciate in some abstract sense). So let them all continue—the films, the books, the television programs, the zoos, the little half acre of ecological preserve in any community, the primary school lessons, the museum demonstrations, even […] the 6:00 A.M. bird walks. Let them continue and expand because we must have visceral contact in order to love. We really must make room for nature in our hearts.

Dignity | Excellence | Inspiration | Patriotism | Survival | Teach | Excellence |

Stephen Charnock

Every man’s conscience testifies that he is unlike what he ought to be, according to that law engraven upon his heart. In some, indeed, conscience may be seared or dimmer; or suppose some men may be devoid of conscience, shall it be denied to be a thing belonging to the nature of man? Some men have not their eyes, yet the power of seeing the light is natural to man, and belongs to the integrity of the body. Who would argue that, because some men are mad, and have lost their reason by a distemper of the brain, that therefore reason hath no reality, but is an imaginary thing? But I think it is a standing truth that every man hath been under the scourge of it, one time or other, in a less or a greater degree; for, since every man is an offender, it cannot be imagined conscience, which is natural to man, and an active faculty, should always lie idle, without doing this part of its office.

Destroy | Dignity | God | Honor | Men | Peace | Will | God | Happiness |