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

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

She saw the light again. With some irony in her interrogation, for when one woke at all, one's relations changed, she looked at the steady light, the pitiless, the remorseless, which was so much her, yet so little her, which had her at its beck and call (she woke in the night and saw it bent across their bed, stroking the floor), but for all that she thought, watching it with fascination, hypnotised, as if it were stroking with its silver fingers some sealed vessel in her brain whose bursting would flood her with delight, she had known happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!

Books | Mind | Parents |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

For here again, we come to a dilemma. Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. For it was this mixture in her of man and woman, one being uppermost and then the other, that often gave her conduct an unexpected turn. The curious of her own sex would argue how, for example, if Orlando was a woman, did she never take more than ten minutes to dress? And were not her clothes chosen rather at random, and sometimes worn rather shabby? And then they would say, still, she has none of the formality of a man, or a man’s love of power.

Genius | Law | Parents | Power |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

For some reason, we know not what, his childhood was sharply severed. It lodged in him whole and entire. He could not disperse it.

Life | Life | Parents |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.

Money | Need | Parents |

Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum

If I have caused just one person to wipe away a tear of laughter, that's my reward... The rest goes to the government!

Children | Parents |

Victor Borge, born Børge Rosenbaum

Santa Claus has the right idea: visit people once a year.

Children | Little | Parents | Old |

Vance Havner

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

Man | Parents | Time |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

The fact that no two major countries have done to war since they both got McDonald’s is partly due to economic integration, but it is also due to the presence of American power and America’s willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalization–from Iraq to North Korea. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.[...] McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the US Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. And these fighting forces and institutions are paid for by American taxpayer dollars.

Age | Important | Influence | Parents | Principles | Thinking | Time | Woman | Teacher |

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

It has appeared that from the inevitable laws of our nature, some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.

Parents | Qualities | Will |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

I firmly believe that the next great breakthrough in bioscience could come from a 15-year-old who downloads the human genome in Egypt.

Parents | Will | World |

Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz

“To believe your own thought,” observed Emerson, “to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.” But to impose what you believe is true for you upon all men, indeed upon a single individual – that is despotism.

Behavior | Discipline | Enough | Parents | Respect | Respect | Child |

William Godwin

As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.

Government | Parents | Politics | Will | Government |

William Godwin

The illustrious archbishop of Cambray was of more worth than his chambermaid, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred … Supposing the chambermaid had been my wife, my mother or my benefactor. This would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of Fenelon would still be more valuable than that of the chambermaid; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable. Justice would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the expence of the other. What magic is there in the pronoun "my", to overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?

Love | Model | Parents | Sentiment |

William Gouge

The other reference is to the time to come; wherein though he have never so great hope of bettering himself, yet for the present he remaineth content with his present condition.

Care | Cost | Love | Parents | Reason | Will |

William Law

If Religion has raised us into a new world, if it has filled us with new ends of life, if it has taken possession of our hearts, and altered the whole turn of our minds, if it has changed all our ideas of things, given us a new set of hopes and fears, and taught us to live by the realities of an invisible world -- then we may humbly hope that we are true followers.

Children | Devotion | God | Growth | Influence | Parents | Rest | God |

Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL

What is that which asks such a question? Is it your mind? Is it your original nature? Is it some kind of spirit or demon? Is it inside you? Outside you? Is it somewhere intermediate? Is it blue, yellow, red, or white?

Parents | Practice | Study | Wisdom |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

The subtle body (linga) is primeval, unconfined, constant, composed of the principles (tattvas) beginning with Intellect (mahat) and ending with the subtle elements (tanmatras). It transmigrates, free from experience, and is tinged with dispositions (bhavas).

Mother | Parents |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

The question to ask is what will satisfy you? What will bring you peace? And perhaps the answer to those is in asking yourself when you were last happy.

Parents |

Elif Safak

Another base unit and being alone are two different things, when be lonely It's easy to fool yourself and think you you are going on the right path but being alone is better for us because it means you will be alone without feeling you are single , but in the end, it is best that you are looking for one person serve as a mirror for you to remember that you cannot really see yourself, but at the heart of another person and the existence of God P inside.

Creativity | Men | Mother | Parents | Passion |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

I have loved this disaster of a library since I was old enough to read.

Conversation | Dreams | Feelings | Parents | Child | Old |