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

Thomas Merton

When one has too many answers, and when on ejoins a chorus of others chanting the same slogans, there is, it seems to me, a danger that one is trying to evade the loneliness of a conscience that realizes itself to be in an inescapably evil situation. We are under judgment.

Conscience | Danger | Evil | Judgment | Loneliness | Danger |

New York Times Editorial on the Holocaust NULL

It was and it is to do all that can be done to eradicate an evil thing out of our civilization… a thing so incredibly wicked that it would not have been believable of modern man if it had not actually occurred. This evil, this wickedness began with intolerance and hate in a few men’s hearts. It spread until it almost wrecked the world. Now the obligation is to remember, not in hate, not in the spirit of revenge, but so that this spirit cannot ever flourish again so long as man remains on earth. And to this end, let us begin, each of us, by looking into our own hearts.

Civilization | Earth | Evil | Hate | Intolerance | Man | Men | Obligation | Revenge | Spirit | Wickedness | World |

Thomas Paine

[The Bible] is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.

Bible | History | Mankind | Wickedness |

Nikhilananda, fully Swami Nikhilananda, born Dinesh Chandra Das Gupta NULL

The challenge of aggressive evil can be met only by the power of aggressive good.

Challenge | Evil | Good | Power |

Jean Mouroux

To put the temporal in the place of God, when done with full deliberation, is the sin of pride in all its gravity.

Deliberation | God | Pride | Sin |

William Penn

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

Evil | Man | People | Sin |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.

Death | Evil | Mankind | Providence |

Fritz A. Rothschild

It is only the idea of a divine presence hidden within the rational order of nature which is compatible with our scientific view of nature and in accord with our sense of the ineffable.

Nature | Order | Sense |

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

In all conflict with evil, the method to be used is love and not force. When we use evil methods to defeat evil, it is evil that wins.

Defeat | Evil | Force | Love | Method |

Fritz A. Rothschild

Fear is the anticipation and expectation of evil or pain, as contrasted with hope which is the anticipation of good. Awe, on the other hand, is the sense of wonder and humility inspired by the sublime or felt in the presence of mystery. Fear is “a surrender of the succors which reason offers,” awe is the acquisition of insights which the world holds in store for us. Awe, unlike fear, does not make us shrink from the awe-inspiring object, but, on the contrary, draws us near to it. That is why awe is compatible with both love and joy.

Anticipation | Awe | Evil | Expectation | Fear | Good | Hope | Humility | Joy | Love | Mystery | Object | Pain | Reason | Sense | Surrender | Wonder | World | Expectation |

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Creation is not an instantaneous act, but is an eternal process. The immanence of God which follows from this hypothesis is the pledge that evil and error, ugliness and imperfection are not ultimate. Evil has reference to the distance which good has to traverse. Error is the stage on the pathway to truth.

Error | Eternal | Evil | God | Good | Hypothesis | Imperfection | Truth | God |

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, fully Sir or Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

The future is hidden from us, but the past warns us that the world in the end belongs to the unworldly.

Future | Past | World |

Karl Wilheim Friedrich Schlegel, later Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel

It is precisely the conflict between the good or divine principle, on the one hand, and the evil or adverse principle on the other, which constitutes the meaning of human life and human history, from the beginning to the end of time.

Beginning | Evil | Good | History | Life | Life | Meaning | Time |

Shuang-ching Ho

The hardest thing in the world is to reveal a hidden love.

Love | World |