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

John Updike

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

Excess | Rest | Risk |

John Quincy Adams

The best guarantee against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections.

Abuse | Guarantee | Power |

Jorge Luis Borges

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

Abuse |

Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of demand.

Excess | Truth |

King James I of England

Have you not reason then to be ashamed and to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof. In your abuse thereof sinning against God harming yourselves both in person and goods, and raking also thereby the marks and notes of vanity upon you by the custom thereof making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign civil nations and by all strangers that come among you to be scorned and held in contempt; a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

Abuse | Custom | God | Nations | Reason | Right | God |

Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to their deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue unclean ends… Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings… Self-important, obstinate, swept away by the pride of wealth, they ostentatiously perform sacrifices without any regard for their purpose. Egotistical, violent, arrogant, lustful, angry, envious of everyone, they abuse my presence within their own bodies and in the bodies of others.

Abuse | Anger | Delusion | Means | Money | Pride | Regard |

Mary Shelley, née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

Excess | Life | Life | Love |

Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

Age after age, history repeats itself when men and women, in their ignorance, limitations and pride, sit in judgment over the God-incarnated man who declares his Godhood, and condemn him for uttering the Truths they cannot understand. He is indifferent to abuse and persecution for, in his true compassion he understands, in his continual experience of Reality he knows, and in his infinite mercy he forgives.

Abuse | Compassion | Experience | History | Judgment | Man | Men | Mercy | Reality | Truths |

Michael Parenti

Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

Control | Excess | Influence | Life | Life | Society | Wealth | Society |

Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

Abuse nobody, and if a man abuse thee, and lay upon a vice which he knoweth in thee then do not disclose one which thou knowest in him.

Abuse | Man | Vice |

Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

Luxury is therefore absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in despotic states, In the former, it is the use of liberty, in the latter, it is the abuse of servitude... Hence arrives a very natural reflection. Republics end with luxury; monarchies with poverty.

Abuse |

Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.

Abuse | Authority | Experience | Man | Power | Will |

Murray Bookchin

We have yet to determine how many people the planet can sustain without complete ecological disruption. The data are far from conclusive, but they are surely highly biased — generally along economic, racial, and social lines. Demography is far from a science, out it is a notorious political weapon whose abuse has disastrously claimed the lives of millions over the course of the century.

Abuse | People |

Murray Bookchin

In the context of this more mature discourse, the Valdez oil spill is no longer seen as an Alaskan matter, an “episode” in the geography of pollution. Rather it is recognized as a social act that raises such “accidents” to the level of systemic problems-rooted not in consumerism, technological advance, and population growth but in an irrational system of production, an abuse of technology by a grow-or-die economy, and the demographics of poverty and wealth. Ecological dislocation cannot be separated from social dislocations. The social roots of our environmental problems cannot remain hidden without trivializing the crisis itself and thwarting its resolution.

Abuse | Growth | Poverty | Problems | System | Technology | Crisis |

Nikolai Gogol, fully Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol or Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol

Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man, who from the great pool of daily whirling images has chosen only the rare exceptions, who has never once betrayed the exalted turning of his lyre, nor descended from his height to his poor, insignificant brethren, and, without touching the ground, has given the whole of himself to his elevated images so far removed from it. Twice enviable is his beautiful lot: he is among them as in his own family; and meanwhile his fame spreads loud and far. With entrancing smoke he has clouded people's eyes; he has flattered them wondrously, concealing what is mournful in life, showing them a beautiful man. Everything rushes after him, applauding, and flies off following his triumphal chariot. Great world poet they name him, soaring high above all other geniuses in the world, as the eagle soars above the other high fliers. At the mere mention of his name, young ardent hearts are filled with trembling, responsive tears shine in all eyes...No one equals him in power--he is God! But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has dared to call forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see--all the stupendous mire of trivia in which our life in entangled, the whole depth of cold, fragmented, everyday characters that swarm over our often bitter and boring earthly path, and with the firm strength of his implacable chisel dares to present them roundly and vividly before the eyes of all people! It is not for him to win people's applause, not for him to behold the grateful tears and unanimous rapture of the souls he has stirred; no sixteen-year-old girl will come flying to meet him with her head in a whirl and heroic enthusiasm; it is not for him to forget himself in the sweet enchantment of sounds he himself has evoked; it is not for him, finally, to escape contemporary judgment, hypocritically callous contemporary judgment, which will call insignificant and mean the creations he has fostered, will allot him a contemptible corner in the ranks of writers who insult mankind, will ascribe to him the quality of the heroes he has portrayed, will deny him heart, and soul, and the divine flame of talent. For contemporary judgment does not recognize that equally wondrous are the glasses that observe the sun and those that look at the movement of inconspicuous insect; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation; for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse, and that a whole abyss separates it from the antics of the street-fair clown! This contemporary judgment does not recognize; and will turn it all into a reproach and abuse of the unrecognized writer; with no sharing, no response, no sympathy, like a familyless wayfarer, he will be left alone in the middle of the road. Grim is his path, and bitterly he will feel his solitude.

Abuse | Destiny | Dignity | Fame | Insult | Judgment | Laughter | Life | Life | Light | Present | Soul | Strength | Tears | Will | World | Insult | Following |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

Divine love recognizes all good persons who enter our lives as expressions of God's love for us. Every friend — in the guise of relatives, friends, beloved, spouse — who is with us now or who has left this earth is a medium through which God Himself symbolizes His friendships. To ignore or abuse friendship, therefore, is an affront to God.

Abuse | Affront | Earth | Friend | God | Good | Love | God |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

Never abuse the sensory powers by overindulgence, if you would be really happy. ‘Ever fed, never satisfied; never fed, ever satisfied’ is a true axiom about unwholesome sense experiences.

Abuse | Sense |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

Lust applies to the abuse of any or all of the senses in the pursuit of pleasure or gratification. Through the sense of sight man may lust after material objects; through the sense of hearing, he craves the sweet, slow poison of flattery, and vibratory sounds as of voices and music that rouse his material nature; through the lustful pleasure of smell he is enticed toward wrong environments and actions; lust for food and drink causes him to please his taste at the expense of health; through the sense of touch he lusts after inordinate physical comfort and abuses the creative sex impulse. Lust also seeks gratification in wealth, status, power, domination—all that satisfies the "I, me, mine" in the egotistical man. Lustful desire is egotism, the lowest rung of the ladder of human character evolution. By the force of its insatiable passion, karma loves to destroy one's happiness, health, brain power, clarity of thought, memory, and discriminative judgment.

Abuse | Character | Comfort | Desire | Destroy | Force | Lust | Man | Music | Pleasure | Sense | Taste | Wrong |

Paul Hawken

In internationalization, each nation sets its own trade standards and will do business with other nations that are willing to meet those standards. Do nations abuse this system? Always and constantly, and the United States is among the worst offenders in that regard. But where democracies prevail, internationalization does provide a means for people to set their own policy, influence decisions, and determine their own future. Globalization, in contrast, envisions standardized legislation for the entire world, with capital and goods moving at will superior to the rule of national laws. Globalization supersedes nation, state, region, and village. While diminishing the power of nationalism is a good idea, elimination of sovereignty may not be if it is replaced by a corporate boardroom.

Abuse | Business | Good | Influence | Means | Nations | People | Power | Rule | Will | Business |

Paul Hawken

When events slip beyond the horizon of media coverage, they disappear from public discourse: abuse of power thrives in silence, shrinks in the light.

Abuse | Events | Power | Public |