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

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, as surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.

Beauty | Money | Beauty | Friends |

W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield

We frequently hear of people dying from too much drinking. That this happens is a matter of record. But the blame almost always is placed on whisky. Why this should be I never could understand. You can die from drinking too much of anything - coffee, water, milk, soft drinks and all such stuff as that. And so long as the presence of death lurks with anyone who goes through the simple act of swallowing, I will make mine whisky.

Money |

W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.

Money |

W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield

Yes, if every other form of persuasion fails. [Response when asked if he believed in clubs for women]

Money |

Vivienne Westwood, born Vivienne Isabel Swire

But, the thing is, since I always had my own little shop and direct access to the public, I've been able to build up a technique without marketing people ever telling me what the public wants.

Money |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

What the Soviet Constitution gives us no other state has been able to give in two hundred years.

Greed | Money | Need | War |

Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.

Absence | Good | Light | Money | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Thought | Friends | Thought |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one.

Money | Think |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

In my life, I have prayed but one prayer: oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.

Art | Government | Money | Government | Art |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Art | Government | Money | Government | Art |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

The man who says to me, 'Believe as I do, or God will damn you,' will presently say, 'Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate you.'

Charity | Giving | Man | Money | Will |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

Money | Need | Power | Will | Work |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

I have played hell somewhat with the truthfulness of the colors.

Good | Money | Poverty | Solitude | Study |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.

Books | Enough | Future | Hope | Money | Past | Thought | Will | Thought |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

All looked distant and peaceful and strange. The shore seemed refined, far away, unreal. Already the little distance they had sailed had put them far from it and given it the changed look, the composed look, of something receding in which one has no longer any part.

Duty | Money | Nature | Opinion | Will | Woman |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can't very well get out of it.

Better | Heart | Money | Will | Work | Understand |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such- be it so; but I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live, and then, if we live, t

Better | Confidence | Desire | Enough | Hope | Life | Life | Money | Need | Passion | Time | Will | Work | Trouble | Learn | Think |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction - so we are told.

Health | Life | Life | Money | Suffering | Work |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know. I do not believe that you know. I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.

Good | Men | Money |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Nothing is stronger than the position of the dead among the living.

Money | Writing |