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

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

When one has this intelligent self-love is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is enjoined than that he shall do all in his power to commend to him the love of God? This is the worship of God, this is true religion, this right piety, this the service due to God only.

God | Love | Piety | Power | Religion | Right | Self | Self-love | Service | Wisdom | Worship | God |

Bernard Baruch, fully Bernard Mannes Baruch

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren't still there, he's no longer a political leader.

Boys | Time | Wisdom | Leader |

Van Wyck Brooks

There is no stopping the world’s tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.

Authority | Ignorance | Knowledge | Wisdom | World |

Brander Matthews, fully James Brander Matthews

The worst effect of party is its tendency to generate narrow, false, and illiberal prejudices, by teaching the adherents of one party to regard those that belong to an opposing party as unworthy of confidence.

Confidence | Regard | Wisdom |

Brown v. Board of Education NULL

Today education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

Awakening | Citizenship | Education | Good | Important | Life | Life | Opportunity | Public | Right | Service | Society | Training | Wisdom | Child |

William R. Catton, Jr.

To keep from gravitating toward genocidal conflict, we must stop demanding perpetual progress. For quiet nonpolitical reasons, governments and politicians cannot achieve the paradise they habitually promise. Political leaders who continue to dangle before their constituents enticing carrots that are becoming unattainable hasten the erosion of faith in political processes. Circumstances have ceased to be what they were when the once-New World’s myth of limitlessness made sense.

Circumstances | Faith | Myth | Paradise | Progress | Promise | Quiet | Sense | Wisdom | World |

Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz

If the aim of the military action is an equivalent for the political object, that action will in general diminish as the political object diminishes. The more this object comes to the front, the more will this be so. This explains how, without self-contradiction, there can be wars of all degrees of importance and energy, from a war of extermination down to a mere state of armed observation.

Action | Contradiction | Energy | Object | Observation | Self | War | Will | Wisdom |

Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz

War is a continuation of policy by other means. It is not merely a political act but a real political instrument.

Means | Policy | War | Wisdom |

John Dewey

The fundamental defect in the present state of democracy is the assumption that political and economic freedom can be achieved without first freeing the mind. Freedom of mind is not something that spontaneously happens. It is not achieved by mere absence of obvious restraints. It is a product of constant unremitting nurture of right habits of observation and reflection.

Absence | Democracy | Freedom | Mind | Observation | Present | Reflection | Right | Wisdom |

James Fenimore Cooper

Individuality is the aim of political liberty.

Individuality | Liberty | Wisdom |

Declaration of American Women NULL

Man-made barriers, laws, social customs and prejudices continue to keep a majority of women in an inferior position without full control of our lives and bodies. From infancy throughout life, in personal and public relations, in the family, in the schools, in every occupation and profession, too often we find our individuality, our capabilities, our earning powers diminished by discriminatory practices and outmoded ideas of what a woman is, what a woman can do, and what a woman must be... We lack effective political and economic power We have only minor and insignificant roles in making, interpreting and enforcing our laws, in running our political parties, businesses, unions, schools and institutions, in directing the media, in governing our country, in deciding issues of war or peace. We do not seek special privileges, but we demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our nation, our families and our individual lives.

Control | Destiny | Family | Ideas | Individual | Individuality | Infancy | Life | Life | Majority | Man | Occupation | Peace | Position | Power | Public | Right | War | Wisdom | Woman | World |

Cleobulus NULL

We should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him.

Enemy | Friend | Order | Service | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

Some political and social activities of the Catholic Church are detrimental and even dangerous for the community as a whole... [e.g.] the fight against birth control at a time when overpopulation [is] a serious obstacle to peace.

Birth | Church | Control | Peace | Time | Wisdom | Obstacle |

Albert Einstein

The aim of education must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals, who, however, see in the service of community their highest life problem.

Education | Life | Life | Service | Thinking | Training | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Good | Wisdom |

Michel Foucault

I believe that the political significance of the problem of sex is due to the fact that sex is located at the point of intersection of the discipline of the body and the control of the population.

Body | Control | Discipline | Wisdom |