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

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

I want to talk about political and economic fairy tales

Politics |

Ronald A. Heifetz

The scarcity of leadership from people in authority, however, makes it all the more critical to the adaptive successes of a polity that leadership be exercised by people without authority.

Happy | Ideas | Life | Life | Means | Politics | Old |

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

The times when the centre of gravity of political development and the crystallising agent of capitalist contradictions lay on the European continent, are long gone by. To-day Europe is only a link in the tangled chain of international connections and contradictions.

Appearance | Awareness | Destiny | Ideas | Meaning | Omnipotence | Peace | Politics | Proletariat | Revolution | Time | War | World | Awareness |

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process.

Future | Pride | Revolution | Strength | Tomorrow | Will | Leadership |

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

The modern proletarian class doesn’t carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight… That’s exactly what is laudable about it, that’s exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers’ movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.

Revolution | Will |

Russell Kirk

The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.

Politics | Society | Society |

Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office.

Experience | Politics | Will | Old |

Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes

It will be the duty of the Executive, with sufficient appropriations for the purpose, to prosecute unsparingly all who have been engaged in depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

Desire | Good | People | Politics |

Saki, pen name for Hector Hugh Munro or H.H. Munro NULL

Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.

Nothing | Old |

Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.

Defeat |

Sam Ervin, fully Samuel James "Sam" Ervin, Jr.

When religion controls government, political liberty dies; and when government controls religion, religious liberty perishes.

Change | Government | Mind | Surrender | Government |

Samuel Gompers

The Labor movement, to succeed politically, must work for present and tangible results.

Politics |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Politics |

Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco

The continuation of authority has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.

Art | Art |

Simone Weil

It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.

Cause | Men | Order |

Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco

Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves.

God | Spirit | God |

Simon Wiesenthal

The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.

Crime | Decision | History |

Simón Bolívar, fully Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco

I swear before you; I swear on the God of my parents; I swear on them; I swear on my honor and I swear on my country that I shall not give rest to my arm nor respite to my soul until I have broken the chains that oppress us by the will of the Spanish power.

Simone Weil

Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being.

Capacity | Cause | Defeat | Giving | Good | Impression | Meaning | Nations | Opposition | Politics | Purpose | Purpose | Security | War |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody

Politics |