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 Shakespeare

And simple truth miscalled simplicity, and captive good attending captain ill.

Age | Ends | Good | Reputation | Wise | World |

William Shakespeare

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Macbeth, Act v, Scene i

Age | Malice | Worth |

William Shakespeare

ANDREW: I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what's your jest? MARIA: A dry jest, sir. ANDREW: Are you full of them? (Maria:) Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends. Marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren. Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Andrew & Maria at I, iii)

Age | Man |

William Shakespeare

All so soon as the all-cheering sun should in the farthest east begin to draw the shady curtains from Aurora's bed.

Pride |

William Shakespeare

And, oftentimes, excusing of a fault, Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. The Life and Death of King John (Pembroke at IV, ii)

Age | Love | Pride | Thought | Wife | Will | Thought |

William Shakespeare

But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. Macbeth, Act I, Scene 7

Age | Truth |

William Shakespeare

Craft against vice I must apply. Measure for Measure (Vincentio, the Duke at III, ii)

Age | Youth | Youth |

William Shakespeare

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf, and tell me truly what thou think'st of him.

Age |

William Shakespeare

Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear in all my miseries; but thou hast forced me (out of thy honest truth) to play the woman. Henry VIII, Act iii, Scene 3

Age | Corruption | Ends | Fear | God | Hate | Hope | Integrity | Love | Right | Silence | Sin | Zeal | God | Blessed |

William Godwin

It is the property of truth to diffuse itself.

Age | Industry | Mind | Object | Will | Child |

William James

O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.

Age | Chance | Disease | Good | Habit | Hate | Life | Life | Little | Luxury | People | Thinking | Time | Will | Learn | Think |

William James

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

Age | Character | Will | World |

William James

One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.

Age | Heart | Sadness |

William Godwin

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

Age | Hunger | Mercy | Power | Prudence | Prudence | Receive | Revenge | Will | Victim |

William Law

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

Age | Association | Example | Heart | History | Human nature | Liberty | Life | Life | Men | Mind | Nature | Nothing | Regard | Association | Think |

William Matthews

One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Age |

William Law

You have the true reason why revenge or vengeance is not allowed to man: it is because vengeance can only work in the evil or disordered properties of fallen nature. But man, being himself a part of fallen nature and subject to its disordered properties, is not allowed to work with them, because it would be stirring up evil in himself, and that is his sin of wrath or revenge. God therefore reserves all vengeance to Himself, not because wrathful revenge is a temper or quality that can have any place in the holy Deity, but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free from all the properties of nature, whence partial love and hatred spring, and being in Himself nothing but an infinity of love, wisdom, and goodness, He alone knows how to overrule the disorders of nature, and so to repay evil with evil, that the highest good may be promoted by it.

Pride | Think |

William James

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

Church | Consciousness | Dignity | Eternal | Little | Past | Salvation | Soul | Theology | Old |

William James

The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds

Darkness | Dignity | Earth | God | Heaven | God |

William Law

Persons that are well affected to religion, that receive instructions of piety with pleasure and satisfaction, often wonder how it comes to pass that they make no greater progress in that religion which they so much admire. Now the reason of it is this: it is because religion lives only in their head, but something else has possession of their heart; and therefore they continue from year to year mere admirers and praisers of piety, without ever coming up to the reality and perfection of its precepts.

Health | Kill | Pride | Religion |