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

Dugald Stewart

Inclination is another word with which will is frequently confounded. Thus, when the apothecary says, in Romeo and Juliet,— “My poverty, but not my will, consents; Take this and drink it off; the work is done.” the word will is plainly used as synonymous with inclination; not in the strict logical sense, as the immediate antecedent of action. It is with the same latitude that the word is used in common conversation, when we think of doing a thing which duty prescribes, against one’s own will; or when we speak of doing a thing willingly or unwillingly.

Acquaintance | Attainment | Books | Correctness | Grace | Language | Lying | Men | Merit | Purity | Reading | Style | Taste | Writing |

William Shakespeare

O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honor Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!

Merit |

William Shakespeare

O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain!

Spirit |

William Shakespeare

Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.

Action | Disguise | Dishonor | Doubt | Good | Man | Men | Mettle | Nature | Nothing | Peace | Spirit | Teach | War | Worth |

William Shakespeare

One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; one heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.

Little | Nature | Praise | World |

William Shakespeare

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

Honor | Merit |

William Shakespeare

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year. The Merry Wives of Windsor (Anne Page at III, iv)

Conscience | Cunning | Defeat | Devil | Father | Force | Gall | Heart | Heaven | Life | Life | Murder | Oppression | Passion | Play | Power | Property | Revenge | Soul | Spirit | Tears | Weakness | Will | Words | Murder | Guilty |

William Shakespeare

ORSINO: How dost thou like this tune? VIOLA: It gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned.

Perfection | Praise |

William Shakespeare

Put on what weary negligence you please, you and your fellows; I'll have it come to question: if he dislike it, let him to our sister, whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, not to be over-ruled. Idle old man, that still would manage those authorities that he hath given away! Now, by my life, old fools are babes again; and must be used with cheques as flatteries,--when they are seen abused. Remember what I tell you.

Spirit |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

Let us control ourselves and not be resentful when others disagree with us, for all men have hearts and each heart has its own leanings. The right of others is our wrong, and our right is their wrong. We are not unquestionably sages, nor are they unquestionably fools. Both of us are simply ordinary men. How can anyone lay down a rule by which to distinguish right from wrong? For we are all wise sometimes and foolish at others. Therefore, though others give way to anger, let us on the contrary dread our own faults, and though we may think we alone are in the right, let us follow the majority and act like them.

Business | Merit | Public | Punishment | Reward | Business |

Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL

What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.

Spirit |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

All people entrusted with office should attend equally to their duties. Their work may sometimes be interrupted due to illness or their being sent on missions. But whenever they are able to attend to business they should do so as if they knew what it was about and not obstruct public affairs on the grounds they are not personally familiar with them.

Joy | Mystery | Spirit |

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

When the degenerate age of this aeon arrives, people are their own deceivers, their own bad counsel, the makers of their own stupidity, lying to a fooling themselves. How sad that these people have human forms but possess no more sense than an ox!

Giving | Merit | Practice |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

There never was a man all intellect; but just in proportion as men become so they become like lofty mountains, all ice and snow the higher they rise above the warm heart of the earth.

Looks | Mockery | Spirit | World |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

Good faith is the foundation of right. In everything let there be good faith, for if the lord and the vassal keep faith with one another, what cannot be accomplished? If the lord and the vassal do not keep faith with each other, everything will end in failure.

Antiquity | Duty | Man | Men | Office | Praise | Right | Sound | Will | Wise |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

On the third day after the birth of a girl the ancients observed three customs: first to place the baby below the bed; second to give her a potsherd [a piece of broken pottery] with which to play; and third to announce her birth to her ancestors by an offering. Now to lay the baby below the bed plainly indicated that she is lowly and weak, and should regard it as her primary duty to humble herself before others. To give her potsherds with which to play indubitably signified that she should practice labor and consider it her primary duty to be industrious. To announce her birth before her ancestors clearly meant that she ought to esteem as her primary duty the continuation of the observance of worship in the home.

Beauty | Defects | Duty | Excellence | Fame | Father | Glory | Husband | Praise | Reputation | Will | Excellence | Friendship | Beauty |

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

Unstained by objective clinging, unspoilt by the grasping mind, sustaining the naked and empty awareness is the wisdom mind of all buddhas! Do not investigate phenomena; investigate the mind. If you investigate the mind, you’ll know the one thing which resolves all. If you don’t investigate the mind, you can know everything but be forever stuck on one.

Merit | Will |

Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver

Ah, what sights and sounds and pain lie beneath that mist. And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place---but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.

Impression | Memory | Mind | Spirit | Unhappiness | Will |

Egyptian Proverbs

Protect the flame of your candle and it will light more.

Spirit |

Eileen Garrett

Through the years of my trance communications and research, two control personalities... have always been identified with my work, and they have never ceased to maintain their independent and separate selves. It is interesting to note that they have always welcomed every form of scientific investigation into the nature of their own being and the mechanisms of my supernormal functioning; but up to the present any efforts to dislodge them or to reduce them to aspects of my own consciousness have led to no change in their attitude, position, or state of being. The control personalities still maintain the roles they have always played in relation to me, since my trance work began. I have reached a point in my development where I can live in harmony with myself and at peace with those personalities, for I am now able to regard them as the finer aspects of my true self. Whatever their origin may be, I do not, at present, have at my command the means of knowing; but for the time being, I am content to accept the controls as aspects of a constructive principle upon which my entire life has been built.

Gratitude | Heart | Individual | Love | Need | People | Position | Praise | Responsibility | Will | Work | Afraid | Leadership |