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

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches

When men can hate without risk, their stupidity is easily convinced, the motives supply themselves.

Hate | Men | Motives | Stupidity |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Love is rarely a hypocrite; but hate - how detect and how guard against it! It lurks where you least expect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and civilization multiplies its varieties, whilst it favors its disguise.

Civilization | Hate |

Marian Wright Edelman

I've tried to teach what I learned all those years in my mother and father's house, all those things I didn't realize I was learning and that I never knew I'd be so grateful for. When you have love and it's proffered every day in a kind of tender, yet stern insistence and even reckless laughter, when it is given to you and you accept it in life as a thing as natural as rain or snow, or the littler of leaves in fall, you can't help but take it for granted. For a bewildered while you incorrectly understand that the world has given you this because it's there in equal measure, everywhere. You never know until it's too late to do anything about it, how sweet the effort is: how lasting the human will to love can be in the breast of people who want to make it for you, who want to give it to you, without calculating what's in it for them, without thinking at all of what it will mean when you grow to full adulthood, see the world as it is, and forget to mention what you have been given. Every day of my grown-up life, I have wanted to do what my parents did. I have wanted to widen the province of love and weaken hate and bitterness in the hearts of my children. And I've done these things because of what I got from my family, all those lovely years when I was growing up, being loved and cherished and, unbeknown to me, and in the best way, honored, for myself.

Bitterness | Day | Effort | Hate | Learning | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Parents | People | Teach | Thinking | Will | World | Understand |

Mark Van Doren

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

Good | Hate | Nothing | Respect | Respect |

Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Baker

This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, somg go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And babve, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up becuase if you give up, you'll never find your soul mate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.

Good | Hate | Life | Life | Smile | Soul | Will | Friends |

Martha Grimes

Before you hate something you should try to understand it.

Hate | Understand |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Hate | Means |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

Enough | Hate | Man |

May Sarton, pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton

The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about his effect on other people. Power requires that one do just that all the time. Power requires that the inner person never be unmasked. No, we poets have to go naked. And since this is so, it is better that we stay private people; a naked public person would be rather ridiculous, what?

Better | Hate | Love | Power | Public | Spirit | Worry |

Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

Those who cleanse their hearts of the embittering poison of selfishness, hate and greed shall find God as their own true Self. When you find and realize God, the problem of selfishness and its numerous expressions melts away like mist before the sun. In God and as God, all life reveals itself as being really one and indivisible, and all separateness created by identification with human or sub-human forms is seen to be illusory.

God | Greed | Hate | Life | Life | Selfishness | God |

Mignon McLaughlin

If you hate your lot but wouldn't trade it, it's not your lot you hate.

Hate |

Mignon McLaughlin

Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Hate | Looks |

Mignon McLaughlin

Women usually love what they buy, yet hate two-thirds of what is in their closets.

Hate | Love |

Mignon McLaughlin

The neurotic usually obeys his own Golden Rule: Hate thy neighbor as thyself.

Hate |

Mignon McLaughlin

I'm afraid to win, and afraid to lose; I hate a draw and can't stop competing; otherwise I'm fine.

Hate | Afraid |

Mikhail Naimy, also spelled Mikha'il Na'ima

Love is not a virtue. Love is a necessity; more so than bread and water; more so than light and air. Let no one pride himself on loving. But rather breathe in Love and breathe it out just as unconsciously and freely as you breathe in the air and breathe it out. For Love needs no one to exalt it. Love will exalt the heart that it finds worthy of itself. Seek no rewards for Love. Love is reward sufficient unto Love, as Hate is punishment sufficient unto Hate. Nor keep any accounts with Love. For Love accounts to no one but itself. Love neither lends nor borrows; Love neither buys nor sells; but when it gives, it gives its all; and when it takes, it takes its all. Its very taking is a giving. Its very giving is a taking. Therefore is it the same to-day, tomorrow and forevermore.

Giving | Hate | Heart | Light | Love | Pride | Punishment | Reward | Tomorrow | Will |

Mikhail Naimy, also spelled Mikha'il Na'ima

You are the Tree of Life. Your roots are everywhere. Your boughs and leaves are everywhere. Your fruits are in every mouth. Whatever be the fruits upon that tree; whatever be its boughs and leaves; whatever be the roots; they are your fruits; they are your leaves and boughs; they are your roots. If you would have the tree bear sweet and fragrant fruit, if you would have it ever strong and green, see to the sap wherewith you feed the roots. Love is the Sap of Life. While Hatred is the pus of Death. But Love, like blood, must circulate unhindered in the veins. Repress the blood, and it becomes a menace and a plague. And what is Hate but Love repressed, or Love withheld, therefore becoming such a deadly poison both to the feeder and the fed; both to the hater and to that he hates. A yellow leaf upon your tree of life is but a Love-weaned leaf, Blame not the yellow leaf. A withered bough is but a Love-starved bough. Blame not the withered bough. A putrid fruit is but a Hatred-suckled fruit. Blame not the putrid fruit. But rather blame your blind and stingy heart that would dole out the sap of life to few and would deny it to many, thereby denying it to itself. No love is possible except by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.

Blame | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Self |