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

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, known as Dean Stanley

Insist on reading the great books, on marking the great events of the world. Then the little books can take care of themselves, and the trivial incidents of passing politics and diplomacy may perish with the using.

Books | Care | Diplomacy | Events | Little | Politics | Reading | World |

Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee

The things that make good headlines attract our attention because they are on the surface of the stream of life and they distract our attention from the slower, impalpable, imponderable movements that work below the surface and penetrate to the depths. But, of course, it is really these deeper, slower movement that, in the end, make history, and it is they that stand out huge in retrospect, when the sensational passing events have dwindled, in perspective, to their true proportions.

Attention | Events | Good | History | Life | Life | Work |

Arthur W Osborn

In the heart - pure being: “Isness alone is.” Outwardly - flow of events: “A dance, a rhythm.” Between - an evil ghost: “The impostor me,” who seems the very hub and first of things, but, scrutinized, dissolves and is not there. Pure being in the heart - be this, be still; flow of events without - cognize, accept; the evil ghost - be vigilant, expel; this is the path and all the wisdom of it.

Events | Evil | Heart | Wisdom |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

A man’s fate is his own temper; and according to that will be his opinion as to the particular manner in which the course of events is regulated. A consistent man believes in destiny, an capricious man in chance.

Chance | Destiny | Events | Fate | Man | Opinion | Temper | Will | Fate |

Carl Sagan

The very scale of the universe – more than a hundred billion galaxies, each containing more than a hundred billion stars – speaks to us of the inconsequentiality of human events in the cosmic context. We see a universe simultaneously very beautiful and very violent. We see a universe that does not exclude a traditional Western or Eastern god, but that does not require one either.

Events | God | Universe |

Chief Seattle, also spelled Seathl

Every part of this country is sacred to my people... Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.

Events | Fate | Life | Life | Past | People | Sacred | Fate |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten; when the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten. There is no change in what is inside, no following what is outside, when the adjustment to events is comfortable. One begins with what is comfortable and never experiences what is uncomfortable, when one knows the comfort of forgetting what is comfortable.

Change | Comfort | Events | Heart | Right | Following |

Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

Pain is a relativity objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering.

Events | Pain | Suffering |

Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.

Events | Peace | Will |

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

None of us really knows why events happen in our lives. The problem is that we think we should know; but living requires humility, for life is a mystery. All will be revealed in its own time.

Events | Humility | Life | Life | Mystery | Time | Will | Think |

Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

Men are disturbed not by events which happen, but by the opinion they have of these events. Thus death is nothing terrible… but the opinion we have about death is that it is terrible, this is the terrifying thing.

Death | Events | Men | Nothing | Opinion |

Florida Scott-Maxwell

You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.

Events | Life | Life | Need | Reality | Time |

Eudora Welty

The events in our lives happen in a sequence of time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order... the continuous thread of revelation.

Events | Order | Revelation | Time |

Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger

A statesman who cannot shape events will soon be engulfed by them.

Events | Will |

Gustave Le Bon

The memorable events of history are the visible effects of invisible changes in human thought.

Events | History | Thought |

Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger

The public does not in the long run respect leaders who mirror its own insecurities or see only the symptoms of crises rather than the long-term trends. The role of the leader is to assume the burden of acting on the basis of a confidence in his own assessment of the direction of events and how they can be influenced. Failing that, crises will multiply, which is another way of saying that a leader has lost control over events.

Confidence | Control | Events | Public | Respect | Will | Respect | Leader |

Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger

In retrospect all events seem inevitable.

Events | Inevitable |

Henry Ward Beecher

The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the morning star makes in rising. All great developments complete themselves in the world, and modestly wait in silence, praising themselves never, and announcing themselves not at all. We must be sensitive, and sensible, if we would see the beginnings and endings of great things.

Dawn | Events | Noise | Silence | World |

Jeremy Bentham

Like flakes of snow that fall imperceptibly upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another. As snowflakes gather, so our habits are formed. No single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change. No single action creates, however it may exhibit a man's character. But as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so passion, acting on the elements of mischief which pernicious habits have brought together, may overthrow the edifice of truth and virtue.

Action | Change | Character | Earth | Events | Life | Life | Man | Passion | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |