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

Gustave Flaubert

Pellerin used to read every available book on aesthetics, in the hope of discovering the true theory of Beauty, for he was convinced that once he had found it he would be able to paint masterpieces.

Man |

Gustave Flaubert

Read in order to live.

Man | Wise |

Gustave Flaubert

Pellerin read every work on ‘sthetics, in order to find out the true theory of the Beautiful, convinced that, when he had discovered it, he would produce masterpieces. He surrounded himself with every imaginable auxiliary?drawings, plaster-casts, models, engravings; and he kept searching about, eating his heart out.

Care | Health | Man |

Gustave Flaubert

So far as Emma was pertaining concerned About did not she ask herself Whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something That must come Suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul: towards the abyss. She never bethought herself how on the terrace of a house forms the rain Itself into little lakes When the gutters are choked, and she was going on quite unaware of her peril, When all of a sudden she Discovered - a crack in the wall!

Man |

Gustave Flaubert

She only cared for the sea when it was lashed to fury by the storm and for verdure when it served as a background to a ruin. Everything must needs minister to her personal longings, as it were, and she thrust aside as of no account whatever everything that did not immediately contribute to stir the emotions of her heart, for her temperament was sentimental rather than artistic, seeking, not pictures, but emotions.

Man |

Gustave Flaubert

She did not believe that things could remain the same in different places, and since the portion of her life that lay behind her had been bad, no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better.

Man |

Gustave Flaubert

On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.

Sense |

Gustave Flaubert

The artist must manage to make posterity believe that he never existed.

Virtue | Virtue |

Gustave Flaubert

The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of--I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters--I live and breathe them.

Day | Good | Man |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don't let anyone persuade you to say it.

Man |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It is my observation that too many of us are spending money we haven't earned to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like.

Man |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to do so, for his death is a benefit to the race in general.

Earth | Heart | Life | Life | Man | Smile | Will | Worth |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Follow the three R's: - Respect for self. - Respect for others. - Responsibility for all your actions. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

Man | Money | Wise |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Happiness is peace after strife, the overcoming of difficulties, the feeling of security and well-being. The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Sense |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The 3 most powerful resources you have available to you: love, prayer and forgiveness.

Man |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Every contribution to human progress on record has been made by some individual who differed sharply from the general, and was thus, almost, superior to the general. Perhaps the palpably insane must be excepted here, but I can think of no others. Such exceptional individuals should be permitted, it seems to me, to enjoy every advantage that goes with their superiority... The rest are as negligible as the race of cockroaches, who have gone unchanged for a million years.

Man | Wise |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

I believe in only one thing and that thing is human liberty. If ever a man is to achieve anything like dignity, it can happen only if superior men are given absolute freedom to think what they want to think and say what they want to say. I am against any man and any organization which seeks to limit or deny that freedom? and the superior man can be sure of freedom only if it is given to all men.

Excitement | Sense |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss of humanity.

Man | Mind |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Firmness in decision is often merely a form of stupidity. It indicates an inability to think the same thing out twice.

Man |

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra

I love to travel, but sometimes it's nice to stay in one place.

People | Sense |