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

Thomas Wolfe, fully Thomas Clayton Wolfe

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying in the darkness, and we know no death.

Darkness | Death | Heart | Wisdom |

Ma Chih-yüan

A hundred years are no more than the dream of a butterfly. Looking back, how one sighs for the things of the past! Yesterday spring came; this morning the flowers wither. Let us hasten with the forfeit cup before the night is spent and the lamp goes out.

Past |

William Dement, fully William Charles Dement

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“How many times in our comfortable lives,” I asked myself, “have we been moved to rise at half-past two of a winter night to feast and give thanks because we have so lived that we are suddenly pierced to the heart with the sheer blessedness of everyday existence?”

Blessedness | Existence | Heart | Past |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

The chaff from winnowing will blind a man’s eyes so that he cannot tell the points of the compass. Mosquitoes will keep a man awake all night with their biting. And just in the same way this talk of charity and duty to one’s neighbor drives me nearly crazy. Sir! strive to keep the world to its own simplicity. And as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so let virtue establish itself. Wherefore such undue energy, as though searching for a fugitive with a big drum?

Charity | Duty | Energy | Man | Simplicity | Virtue | Virtue | Will | World |

Nahuatl Wise Men including Nezahualcoyotl NULL

One day we must go, one night we will descend into the region of mystery. Here, we only come to know ourselves; only in passing are we here on earth. In peace and pleasure let us spend our lives; come let us enjoy ourselves. Let not the angry do so; the earth is vast indeed! Would that one lived forever; would that one were not to die!

Day | Earth | Mystery | Peace | Pleasure | Will |

Guru Nanak

The holy man is the true lover by whom the Truly Beloved is found. Man is then happy night and day, and naturally absorbed in God. The holy man may laugh; the holy man may weep. Whatever he does, is in God’s service.

Day | God | Happy | Man | Service |

Abba Pimen

A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent.

Heart | Man |

John Ray or Wray

The day has eyes, the night has ears.

Day |

Finnish Proverbs

No night is so long that day will not follow it.

Day | Will |

Bob Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman

What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Man | Money | Success | Wants |

Chief Seattle, also spelled Seathl

Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

Waste | Will |

Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

Do you know that if you are courteous and pleasant all day during your work that you will go home at night less fatigued than if you gave way to irritation? Pleasantry, light laughs, relieve tension. It isn't work that makes you tired, it's your mental attitude. Try it.

Day | Light | Will | Work |