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

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Experience | Freedom | Will |

T. E. Hulme, fully Thomas Ernest Hulme

The process of evolution can only be described as the gradual insertion of more and more freedom into matter.

Evolution | Freedom |

Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once for all, but is a process; he is not merely an extant life, but is, within that life, endowed with possibilities through the freedom he possesses to make of himself what he will by the activities on which he decides.

Freedom | Life | Life | Man | Will |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.

Freedom | Will |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. It’s the only path to serenity.

Care | Heart | Money | People | Security | Serenity | Will | Work | Approval |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

For governing a country well thee is nothing better than moderation. The mark of a moderate man is freedom from his own ideas. Tolerant like the sky, all-pervading like sunlight, firm like a mountain, supple like a tree in the wind, he has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring his way. Nothing is impossible for him. Because he has let go, he can care for the people’s welfare as a mother cares for her child.

Better | Care | Freedom | Ideas | Life | Life | Man | Moderation | Mother | Nothing | People |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Without freedom there can be no morality.

Freedom | Morality |

Russell Kirk

Persuasion that property and freedom are inseparably connected, and that economic leveling is not economic progress. Separate property from private possession, and liberty is erased.

Freedom | Liberty | Persuasion | Progress | Property |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We should never forget that everything Hitler did in German was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”

Freedom |

George Mason

That government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration, and that whenever any government shall be found inadequate, or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the weal.

Administration | Danger | Government | Majority | People | Reform | Right | Security | Government | Danger | Happiness |

José Martí, fully José Julián Martí Pérez

The dagger plunged in the name of Freedom is plunged into the breast of Freedom.

Freedom |

Abraham Lincoln

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that his nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Birth | Earth | Freedom | God | Government | People | Government |

Everett Dean Martin

Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much that he feels himself thereby appointed his brother’s keeper.

Better | Freedom | Guarantee | Love | Man |

Douglas MacArthur

There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.

Earth | Opportunity | Security |

Bibhuti Mazumder

The degradation of our society today stems mainly from the lack of awareness of what is within us. Being ignorant of our true nature, we seek external solutions to the problems rooted within. In our search for security and prosperity we have abandoned ourselves and are constantly drifting away from human values and virtues.

Awareness | Nature | Problems | Prosperity | Search | Security | Society | Society | Awareness |

Iris Murdoch, aka Dame Jean Iris Murdoch

Freedom is not choosing; that is merely the move that we make when all is already lost. Freedom is knowing and understanding and respecting things quite other than ourselves.

Freedom | Knowing | Understanding |