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

Elias Canetti

Nothing was better for you than humiliation, for there was nothing you felt more deeply.

Better | Diet | Goals | Mind | Novels | Personality | Pleasure | Size | Strength | Taste | Teach | Think | Understand |

Elias L. Magoon

Industry is a Christian obligation, imposed on our race to develop the noblest energies, and insures the highest reward.

Censor | Worth |

William Shakespeare

Sir Hugh, persuade me not--I will make a Starchamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Mind |

William Shakespeare

Some must watch while some must sleep, so runs the world away.

Love | Men |

William Shakespeare

SALERIO: If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. SOLANIO: I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbors believe she wept for the death of a third husband.

Business | Love | Mind | Business |

William Shakespeare

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e'er loved, or father found, a love that makes breath poor and speech unable.

Behavior | Cause | Children | Contempt | Counsel | Desire | Duty | Father | Fear | Friend | Good | Grace | Heaven | Honor | Love | Marriage | Mind | Obedience | Pity | Pleasure | Right | Sacred | Time | Wife | Will | Wise | Wit | Woman | Friendship | Counsel | Friends |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don't know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do...

Emotions | Ideas | Mind |

William Shakespeare

So, of his gentleness, Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

Business | Cause | Day | Death | Duty | Father | God | Greatness | Guilt | Law | Life | Life | Man | Men | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sin | Soul | Teach | Time | War | Business | God | Guilty | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

For you, I am even willing to suffer. Whatever pain happens to us in the future, I accept it already, just for the pleasure of being with you now. Let’s enjoy this time. It’s marvelous.

History | Love | Regard | Risk | Waiting | Victim |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Creative people always suffer from depression because we're so super sensitive and special?

Challenge | Comfort | Enough | Humanity | Means | Money | Need | People | Pleasure | Search | Skill | System | Time | Will | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Imagine that the universe is a great spinning engine. You want to stay near the core of the thing - right in the hub of the wheel - not out at the edges where all the wild whirling takes place, where you can get frayed and crazy. The hub of calmness - that's your heart. That's where God lives within you. So stop looking for answers in the world. Just keep coming back to that center and you'll always find peace.

Commitment | Good | Mind | Self | Leader |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn, to theme parks to wars, bu that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. Americans work harder and longer and more stressful hours than anyone in the world today. But as Luca Spaghetti pointed out, we seem to like it. Alarming statistics back this observation up, showing that many Americans feel more happy and fulfilled in their offices than they do in their own homes. Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma(which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure). Americans don't really know how to do nothing. This is the cause of the great sad American stereotype- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but cannot relax.

Mind | Sacred |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I told him: Maybe you could come to visit me in America someday, Ketut. Navia and shook his head cheerfully resigned to capacity: I cannot Liz, I do not have enough teeth to travel by plane

Absolution | Children | Clemency | Pain | People | Thought | Words | Friends | Thought |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Every word was a singing sparrow, a magic trick, a truffle for me. The words made me laugh in delight.

Better | Mind | Play |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I'd learned enough from life's experiences to understand that destiny's interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn't take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.

Attention | Change | Control | Death | Ego | God | Heart | Important | Life | Life | Light | Little | Love | Marriage | Mind | People | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Relationship | Right | Soul | Space | Time | Universe | Will | God | Afraid | Think | Understand |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Listen to me. Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing.

Emotions | Good | Happy | Ideas | Loneliness | Mind | Past | Time |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me to not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough--but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

Computer | Day | Earth | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Music | Nature | Nothing | People | Television | Time | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Oh Krishna's mind concern, rough, strong and stubborn, and subjected to at least the difficulty of for subjecting the wind

Absolution | Business | Children | Clemency | Pain | People | Right | Thought | Words | Business | Friends | Thought |

Elizabeth Gilbert

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

Day | Mind | Need | Noise | Peace | Silence | Wants | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.

Eternal | Evolution | God | History | Humanity | Ideas | Individual | Longing | Means | Need | Nothing | Order | Peace | Providence | Right | Sacred | Search | Spirit | Story | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wonder | God | Think | Thought |