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

Richard Dawkins

To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons, and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.

People | Politics | World | Friends |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin' the nuns; that's been goin' on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That's what's happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.

Church | Destroy | Hell | Public | Will | Think |

Robertson Davies

I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing.

Age | Bravery | Fighting | Humanity | Need | People | Think |

Robert Burton

Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.

Friends |

Rona Barrett born Rhona Bernstein, Mrs. William Trowbridge

Pick your enemies carefully or you'll never make it in Los Angeles.

Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

Let our adversaries therefore load us with the infamous titles of traitors, and rebels, as the Ariansdid in the persecution of the Vandals, and as the Ethnicswere wont to call Christians sarmentitios, and semasios, because they were tied to halfpenny stakes, and burnt with shrubs: so let them draw us upon hurdles, hang us, unbowel us alive, mangle us, boil us, and set our quarters upon their gates, to be meat for the birds of the air, as they use to handle rebels: we will answer them as the Christians of former persecutions have done. Hic est habitus victoriae nostrae, hec palmata vestis, tali curru triumphamus, merito itaque victis non placemus. Such is the manner of our victory, such our conquerous garment, in such chariots do we triumph. What marvel therefore if our vanquished enemies mislike us?

Will |

Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah

Spirit splits in its asking, and soul in its wanted is balked; and the body, fattened, is vital and full— its precious being uneasy . . . But the modest man walks on the earth with his thought drawn toward sky. What good is the pulse of man’s flesh and its favors when the mind is in pain?

Earth | Fear | God | Good | Light | Man | Men | Mind | Sense | Soul | Thinking | Will | Friendship | God | Friends |

Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

My breast I am smiting, My own sins indicting. How then canst Thou draw me To strife and thus awe me, And bring Me to judgment? My branch hangeth ailing, My eyelid is failing, My aims to derision Are turned by the vision Of Thee bringing judgment. The creditor calleth, The dread decree falleth, The awful day breaking God’s creatures sets quaking In fear of His judgment. Through Thy attributes preaching, Almighty, and teaching, O weigh aberration In the scale of salvation, Nor bring us to judgment. In Thy merciful fashion Award us compassion, That man who but dust is May handle with justice The haters of judgment. Like a vapour evanished, Man is melted and banished, His birth is coëval With a harvest of evil, ’Tis Thou must bring judgment. We await—O behold us— Thy love to enfold us. Did Thy warning not hasten Our impulse to chasten? For the Lord loveth judgment.

Art | Beauty | Compassion | Cunning | Death | Deeds | Destroy | God | Joy | Kindness | Light | Little | Lord | Lying | Meditation | Men | Nations | Peace | Prayer | Prison | Rebuke | Salvation | Sin | Tears | Thought | Truth | Will | Deeds | Art | Beauty | God | Thought |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses. Don't wait any longer...

Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL

Every day you provide your bodies with good food to keep them from failing. In the same way, your good works should be the daily nourishment of your hearts. Your bodies are fed with food and your spirits with good works. You aren't to deny your soul, which is going to live forever, what you grant to your body, which is going to die.

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

When the apostle James was talking about faith and works against those who thought their faith was enough, and didn’t want to have good works, he said, You believe God is one; you do well; the demons also believe, and tremble.” (Jas 2:19)

Men | Will |

Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

What is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean, those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.

Compassion | Family | Harm | Heart | Mercy | Prayer | Receive | Sorrow | Tears |

Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

When I think of myself my mind cannot soar to higher things but is like a bird with broken wings.

Dread | Lord | Men |

Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

I had one brother almost of my own age, whom I loved best... We used to read the lives of the Saints together. And when I read of the martyrdoms which they suffered for the love of God, I used to think that they had bought their entry into God's presence very cheaply. Then I fervently longed to die like them, not out of any conscious love for Him, but in order to attain, as quickly as they had, those joys which, as I read, are laid up in Heaven. I used to discuss with my brother ways and means of becoming martyrs, and we agreed to go together to the land of the Moors, begging our way for the love of God, so that we might be beheaded there. I believe that our Lord had given us courage enough even at that tender age, if only we could have seen a way. But our parents seemed to us a very great hindrance.

Authority | Courage | God | Good | Lord | Strength | God | Afraid |

Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

May it please our Lord that I be not one of these; and may His Majesty give me grace to take that for peace which is really peace, that for honor which is really honor, and that for delight which is really a delight. Let me never mistake one thing for another — and then I snap my fingers at all the devils, for they shall be afraid of me. I do not understand those terrors which make us cry out, Satan, Satan! when we may say, God, God! and make Satan tremble. Do we not know that he cannot stir without the permission of God? What does it mean? I am really much more afraid of those people who have so great a fear of the devil, than I am of the devil himself. Satan can do me no harm whatever, but they can trouble me very much, particularly if they be confessors. I have spent some years of such great anxiety, that even now I am amazed that I was able to bear it. Blessed be our Lord, who has so effectually helped me!

Evil | Fear | Friend | Harm | Hell | Love | Nothing | Peace | Satan | Service | Sin | Terror | Understanding | Weapons | Will | World | Understand |

Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

I have a deep feeling for Kashmir, and I just had to write this book, ... [But] it's very hard to write about real events. It becomes unbearable. The challenge in writing this book was: how do you write about these things bearably without sweetening the pill?

Hate |

Samson Raphael Hirsch

Perhaps the day will come when all the things bestowed upon mankind for its benefit and liberation will become corrupted into their very antithesis. Mankind, instead of assuring its members their legitimate rights of development ... will serve them the tear-drenched bread of slaves and the worm-wood of bitterness.... At such time, science, too, will become solely destructive ... will frantically blind itself with its own brightness ....Mankind will vainly exhaust its strength in a blind upsurge of uncurbed desires.

Conscience | Duty | Enlightenment | Father | Knowledge | Mind | Sacred | Training | Child |

Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech

Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red-hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul - let my unformed childhood soul, as it ages, assume the rational and esthetic forms of an architecture, let me learn just everything that others cannot teach me, what only life would be capable of marking deeply in my skin!

Samuel Adams

The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.

Contempt | Little | Opinion | Religion |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.

Distress | Knowledge |