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

R. G. Collingwood, fully Robert George Collingwood

For history, the object to be discovered is not the mere event, but the thought expressed in it... All history is the history of thought.

History | Object | Thought | Thought |

Quentin Crisp, born Denis Charles Pratt

To be a man of destiny is to arrive at a point in history when the only gift you have to offer has suddenly become relevant.

Destiny | History | Man |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most of the great results in history are brought about by discreditable means.

History | Means |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All history is the decline of war, though the slow decline. All that society has yet gained is mitigation; the doctrine of the right of war still remains.

Doctrine | History | Right | Society | War | Society |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.

History | Power |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.

History | Words |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The most fugitive word or deed, the more air of doing a thing, the intimated purpose, expresses character, and the remote results of character are civil history and events that shake or settle the world. If you act, you show character; if you sit still, you show it; if you sleep, you show it.

Character | Events | History | Purpose | Purpose | World |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We cannot describe the natural history of the soul, but we know that it is divine. All things are known to the soul. It is not to be surprised by any communication. Nothing can be greater than it, let those fear and those fawn who will. The soul is in her native realm; and it is wider than space, older than time, wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn; they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes, and goes out through universal love to universal power.

Fear | History | Hope | Love | Nothing | Power | Soul | Space | Time | Will |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

With the Past, as past, I have nothing to do; nor with the Future as future; I live now, and will verify all past history in my own moments.

Future | History | Nothing | Past | Will |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All history is the record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.

History | Power |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. The dice of God are always loaded.

Balance | Doctrine | Equity | Evil | Force | God | Good | History | Inspiration | Justice | Law | Life | Life | Omnipresence | Sentiment | Soul | Strength | Universe | World | God | Value |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man... and all history resolves itself easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons. Let a man, then, know his worth, and keep things under his feet.

History | Man | Worth |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first lesson of history is that evil is good.

Evil | Good | History | Lesson |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The history of man is a series of conspiracies to win from nature some advantage without paying for it.

History | Man | Nature |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The use of history is to give to the present hour and its duty.

Duty | History | Present |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The history of mankind is the history of arrested growth.

Growth | History | Mankind |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We cannot describe the natural history of the soul, but we know that it is divine.

History | Soul |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means.

History | Means |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first lesson of history is the good of evil.

Evil | Good | History | Lesson |