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

William Ellery Channing

War is the concentration of all human crimes. It turns man into a beast of prey.

Man | War | Wisdom |

Jacob Burnap

Decision of character is one of the most important of human qualities, philosophically considered. Speculation, knowledge, is not the chief end of man; it is action.

Action | Character | Decision | Important | Knowledge | Man | Qualities | Speculation | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.

Evil | Fraud | Little | Lust | Man | Perfidy | Rage | War | Wisdom |

James Herbert Case, Jr.

Peace is not the elimination of the causes of war. Rather it is a mastery of great human forces and the creation of an environment in which human aims may be pursued constructively.

Aims | Peace | War | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

Secret study, silent thought, is, after all, the mightiest agent in human affairs.

Study | Thought | Wisdom |

Ralph Bunche, fully Ralph Johnson Bunche

There is no problem of human nature which is insoluble.

Human nature | Nature | Wisdom |

Arthur Powell Davies

Laughter is an integral part of life, one that we could ill afford to lose. If I were asked what single quality every human being needs more than any other, I would answer, the ability to laugh at himself. When we see our own grotesqueries, how droll our ambitions are, how comical we are in almost all respects, we automatically become more sane, less self-centered, more humble, more wholesome. To laugh at ourselves we have to stand outside ourselves - and that is an immense benefit. Our puffed-up pride and touchy self-importance vanish; a clean and sweet humility begins to take possession of us. We are on the way to growing a soul.

Ability | Humility | Laughter | Life | Life | Pride | Self | Soul | Wisdom |

Midge Decter, fully Midge Rosenthal Decter

The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the... ecological chain of birthing, growing and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.

Children | Culture | Judgment | Society | Terror | Wisdom | Words | Youth | Society | Youth |

Robert Conkin, aka Bob Conkin

If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities.

Problems | Wisdom |

George Dawson

A great library contains the diary of the human race.

Human race | Race | Wisdom |

Richard Corliss, fully Richard Nelson Corliss

Every artist undresses his subject whether human or still life. It is his business to find essences in surfaces, and what more attractive and challenging surface than the skin around a soul?

Business | Life | Life | Soul | Wisdom | Business |

Walter R. Courtenay

God gave man work, not to burden him, but to bless him, and useful work, willingly, cheerfully, effectively done, has always been the finest expression of the human spirit.

God | Man | Spirit | Wisdom | Work |

William Benton Clulow

Nothing so much convinces me of the boundlessness of the human mind as its operations in dreaming.

Mind | Nothing | Wisdom |

Robert Collyer

God hides some ideal in every human soul. At some time in our life we feel a trembling, fearful longing to do some good thing. Life finds its noblest spring of excellence in this hidden impulse to do our best.

Excellence | God | Good | Impulse | Life | Life | Longing | Soul | Time | Wisdom | Excellence |

John Dewey

The future of religion is connected with the possibility of developing a faith in the possibilities of human experience and human relationships that will create a vital sense of the solidarity of human interests and inspire action to make that sense a reality.

Action | Experience | Faith | Future | Reality | Religion | Sense | Will | Wisdom |