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

Richard Avedon

I always prefer to work in the studio. It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense... symbolic of themselves. I often feel that people come to me to be photographed as they would go to a doctor or a fortune teller - to find out how they are.

Fortune | People | Work |

Robertson Davies

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Better | Fortune | Learn |

Robert Burton

It never yet happened to any man since the beginning of the world, nor ever will, to have all things according to his desire, or to whom fortune was never opposite and adverse.

Beginning | Fortune | Man |

Richard Avedon

How many pictures have you torn up because you hate them? What ends up in your scrapbook? The pictures where you look like a good guy and a good family man, and the children look adorable - and they're screaming the next minute. I've never seen a family album of screaming people.

Fortune | People | Work |

Robert Burns, aka Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard

Literary - Ae fond kiss, and then we sever! A farewell, and then forever! Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. Who shall say that Fortune grieves him, While the star of hope she leaves him? Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me, Dark despair around benights me.

Despair | Fortune | Hope | Tears |

Richard Avedon

I hate cameras. They interfere; they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could just work with my eyes alone. To get a satisfactory print, one that contains all that you intended, is very often more difficult and dangerous than the sitting itself. When I’m photographing, I immediately know when I’ve got the image I really want. But to get the image out of the camera and into the open, is another matter.

Fortune | People |

Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

Times go by Turns - THE loppèd tree in time may grow again, Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower; The sorest wight may find release of pain, The driest soil suck in some moist'ning shower; Times go by turns and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. The sea of Fortune doth not ever flow, She draws her favours to the lowest ebb; Her tides hath equal times to come and go, Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web; 10 No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend. Not always fall of leaf nor ever spring, No endless night yet not eternal day; The saddest birds a season find to sing, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay: Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. A chance may win that by mischance was lost; The net that holds no great, takes little fish; In some things all, in all things none are crost, Few all they need, but none have all they wish; Unmeddled joys here to no man befall: Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

Better | Chance | Change | Eternal | Fear | Fortune | God | Hope | Joy | Little | Man | Time | God |

Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, Baron Broghill

Let not one look of Fortune cast you down; she were not Fortune if she did not frown.

Fortune |

Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

My conscience is my crown, Contented thoughts my rest; My heart is happy in itself, My bliss is in my breast... Enough I reckon wealth; A mean the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, Too low for envy's shot... I feel no care of coin, Well-doing is my wealth; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health... rise by others' fall I deem a losing gain; All states with others' ruins built To ruin run amain... Fortune smiles, I smile to think How quickly she will frown.

Care | Conscience | Fortune | Grace | Happy | Heart | Mind | Smile | Will |

Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

I before Thy greatness Stand, and am afraid:— All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth Deep within my bosom laid.

Change | Day | Fortune | Freedom | Lord | Pleasure | Spirit | Will | Blessed | Friends |

Sappho NULL

I can reveal to you that I wished to die - For with much weeping she left me Saying: "Sappho - what suffering is ours! For it is against my will that I leave you." In answer, I said: "Go, happily remembering me For you know what we shared and pursued - If not, I wish you to see again our [former joys]... The many braids of rose and violet you [wreathed] Around yourself at my side And the many garlands of flowers With which you adorned your soft neck: With royal oils from [fresh flowers] You anointed [ yourself ] And on soft beds fulfilled your longing [For me]

Awakening | Blame | Chance | Compassion | Earth | Enough | Fortune | Fun | Giving | Good | Immortality | Journey | Joy | Kindness | Learning | Man | Mind | Miracles | Need | Pity | Pleasure | Poverty | Pride | Self | Slander | Space | Suffering | Time | Vision | Wealth | Will | World | Slander | Happiness |

Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

Before you act consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act.

Blessings | Fortune | Health |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

Better | Fortune | Learn |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Contempt | Fortune |

Simone Weil

He who has not God in himself cannot feel His absence.

Chance | Fortune | Illusion | Love | Man | Necessity | Regard | Respect | Respect |

Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

[Anselm’s Proof God exists] God exists in our understanding… This means that the concept of God resides as an idea in our minds… God is a possible being, and might exist in reality. He is possible because the concept of God does not bear internal contradictions… If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater… This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great)… Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing. Suppose (theoretically) that God only exists in our understanding and not in reality. If this were true, then it would be possible for God to be greater then he is… This would mean that God is a being in which a greater is possible. This is absurd because God, a being in which none greater is possible, is a being in which a greater is possible… Herein lies the contradiction… Thus it follows that it is false for God to only exist in our understanding. Hence God exists in reality as well as our understanding.

Adversity | Fortune | God | Good | Spirit | Supplication | God |