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

Václav Havel

The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.

Force | Man | Meaning | Nature |

Václav Havel

Clearly, things turned out quite differently: I have now been here for more than thirteen years, if we discount the short break in the latter half of 1992.

Science | Universe |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

The advice of the old light without heat, like the sun in the winter.

Force | Laziness |

Vannevar Bush

Whenever logical processes of thought are employed— that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove— there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

Absolute | Chance | Energy | Guidance | Meaning | Phenomena | Property | Science | Space | Time | Universe | Wonder | Guidance |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

Women and young people develop their separate estimates of their tastes.

Appearance | Blame | Justice | Law | Order | Rights | Rule | Universe |

Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Love | Search | Universe |

Hung Tzu-ch'eng, also Hong Zicheng or Hóng Zìchéng, born Hong Yingming

Wealth is for them; virtue is for me. Peerage is for them; integrity is for me. The noble person is fundamentally indomitable, a master of destiny, who puts things in motion with sing-minded purpose, free from the strictures of ministers of state and free even from the kilns and molds of heaven-and-earth.

Day | Hurry | Time | Universe |

Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.

Force | Will | Friends |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

Israel’s military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon — when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat. It was focused on the morning after the morning after, when all the real business happens in the Middle East. That’s when Lebanese civilians, in anguish, said to Hezbollah: “What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what? For whom?”… In Gaza, I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to “educate” Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population. If it is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims. Now its focus, and the Obama team’s focus, should be on creating a clear choice for Hamas for the world to see: Are you about destroying Israel or building Gaza?

Enough | Force | Pain | Property |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.

Fighting | Force | Power | Safe | System | War | Will | Work | World |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

When Muslim radicals and fundamentalists look at the West, they see only the openness that makes us, in their eyes, decadent and promiscuous. They see only the openness that has produced Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. They do not see, and do not want to see, the openness - the freedom of thought and inquiry - that has made us powerful, the openness that has produced Bill Gates and Sally Ride. They deliberately define it all as decadence. Because if openness, women's empowerment, and freedom of thought and inquiry are the real sources of the West's economic strength, then the Arab-Muslim world would have to change. And the fundamentalists and extremists do not want to change.

Competition | Force | Knowledge | Work |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

Supply chains cannot tolerate even 24 hours of disruption. So if you lose your place in the supply chain because of wild behavior you could lose a lot. It would be like pouring cement down one of your oil wells.

Force |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind.

Extreme | Force | Nations | People | Poverty | Terrorism |

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.

Earth | Force |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history. It represents the experiences made by men and women, the experiences of those who do and live under that flag.

Example | Force | Influence | Man | Need | Peace | Right | Will |

Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen

Beauty is commonly a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.

Accomplishment | Force | Man | Taste |

Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen

The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness.

Birth | Body | Consequences | Culture | Deference | Distinction | Example | Force | Indulgence | Leisure | Lesson | Men | Office | Practice | Regard | Regulation | Respect | Speech | Respect | Vice |

Thucydides NULL

Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others as long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is aroused and he begins to be incredulous.

Enemy | Force | Future | Strength | Vengeance | Wrong |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

Enough | Father | Force | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Struggle | Time | Old |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

The wise person devotes his life exclusively to the religious search — for therein is found the only ecstasy, the only meaning.

Intelligence | Universe |