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

Joseph Anderson, fully Joseph Inslee Anderson

There is nothing that solidifies and strengthens a nation like reading of the nation’s own history, whether that history is recorded in books, or embodied in customs, institutions, and monuments.

Books | History | Nothing | Reading | Wisdom |

Alonzo of Arragon NULL

Old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, old books to read.

Books | Trust | Wisdom | Friends | Old |

Thomas Arnold, aka Thomas "Tom" Arnold the Younger

The major fact about history is that in large part it appears criminal.

History | Wisdom |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

Opinion | Taste | Wisdom | Friends |

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

Character | History | Prejudice |

W. W. Battershall

What a power has Death to awe and hush the voices of this earth! How mute we stand when that presence confronts us, and we look upon the silence he has wrought in a human life! We can only gaze, and bow our heads, and creep with our broken stammering utterances under the shelter of some great word which God has spoken, and in which we see through the history of human sorrow the outstretching and overshadowing of the eternal arms.

Awe | Death | Earth | Eternal | God | History | Life | Life | Power | Silence | Sorrow | Wisdom | God |

Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne

Bring the history of the past not as a gloomy memento mori, but as a friendly forget-me-not, whose lessons we may recall with love.

History | Love | Past | Wisdom |

Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch

There is no more dangerous misconception than this which misconstrues the arms race as the cause rather than a symptom of the tensions and divisions which threaten nuclear war. If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace.

Cause | History | Past | Peace | Race | War | Wisdom |

Cyrus Augustus Bartol

Good manners and good morals are sworn friends and fast allies.

Good | Manners | Wisdom | Friends |

Albert Barnes

When we come to die, we shall be alone. From our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends - the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities, will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties - our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sister, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Savior - from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who “sticketh closer than a brother” - One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.

Children | Position | Possessions | Qualities | Wealth | Will | Wisdom | World | Friends |

George Bancroft

So grasping is dishonesty, that it is no respecter of persons; it will cheat friends as well as foes; and were it possible, would cheat even God Himself.

Dishonesty | God | Will | Wisdom | God | Friends |

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

Strike from mankind the principle of faith, and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep.

Faith | History | Mankind | Men | Wisdom |

Kay Boyle

There is only one history of importance, and it is the history of what you once believed in and the history of what you came to believe in.

History | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

Age | History | Knowing | Men | Past | Present | Wisdom |

Samuel Butler

The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

Death | History | Opinion | Public | Weakness | Wisdom | World |

William Bliss Carman

To be contented is to be good friends with yourself.

Good | Wisdom | Friends |