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

Samuel Butler

There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.

Antagonism | Care | Cause | Eternal | Good | Individual | Suffering | Will | World |

Samuel Butler

Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

Respect | Reverence | Superiority | Respect |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have missed long enough to want it, we value more when it is regained; but that which has been lost till it is forgotten will be found at last with little gladness, and with still less if a substitute has supplied the place.

Superiority |

Samuel Horsley

In this country my Lords... the individual subject... 'has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them'

Affliction | Character | Distinguish | Feelings | Man | Perfection | Sensibility | Society | Suffering | Friendship | Society | Blessed |

Samuel Gompers

You are our employers not our masters. Under the system of government we have in the United States, we are your equals, and we contribute as much, if not more, to the success of industry than do the employers.

Doctrine | Effort | Force | Men | Principles | Suffering | Will |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

Men | People | Superiority |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Suffering |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

It is observed in the golden verses of Pythagoras that power is never far from necessity. The vigor of the human mind quickly appears when there is no longer any place for doubt and hesitation, when diffidence is absorbed in the sense of danger, or overwhelmed by some resistless passion.

People | Superiority |

Samuel Smiles

There is no act, however trivial, but has its train of consequences, as there is no hair so small but it casts its shadow.

Suffering | Work | Trial |

Samuel Smiles

"Give me a standing place," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world" - Goethe has changed the postulate into the precept. "Make good thy standing place, and move the world."

Choice | Lord | Love | Salvation | Skill | Suffering | Time | Will | Wisdom |

Sydney J. Harris

It is certain that nothing we have brings us happiness, but only what we are, what we feel about ourselves.

Superiority |

Simone Weil

Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don't happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don't understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.

God | Joy | Suffering | God |

Simone Weil

The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty.

Good | Man | Need | Property | Punishment | Soul | Suffering |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Pain | Rage | Suffering | Warning |

Simone Weil

More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.

Force | Little | Man | Suffering | Wisdom | Learn | Think |

Simone Weil

Capitalism has brought about the emancipation of collective humanity with respect to nature. But this collective humanity has itself taken on with respect to the individual the oppressive function formerly exercised by nature.

Eternal | Hunger | Law | Man | Punishment | Respect | Suffering | Respect |

Simone Weil

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

Evil | Sin | Suffering |

Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps

It is a shallow mind that suspects or rejects an offered kindness because it is unable to discover the motive. It would have been as wise for the Egyptians to have scorned the pure waters of the Nile because they were not quite certain about the source of that mighty river.

Good | Suffering | Loss |

Simone Weil

Whenever one tries to suppress doubt, there is tyranny.

Day | Soul | Suffering |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

Aye, indeed! Hast been brought up at the Abbey then. I could read it from thy reddened cheek and downcast eye, Hast learned from the monks, I trow, to fear a woman as thou wouldst a lazar-house. Out upon them! that they should dishonor their own mothers by such teaching. A pretty world it would be with all the women out of it.

Change | Nothing | Pain | Perception | Public | Suffering | Terror | World |