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

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

Character | Ends | Men | Power | Self |

Johann Gottfried Seume

Idleness is the stupidity of the body, and stupidity is the idleness of the mind.

Body | Character | Idleness | Mind | Stupidity |

Elsa Yur'evna Triolet, Born Ella Kagan

Killing time or killing yourself amounts to the same thing, strictly speaking.

Character | Time |

Jean de La Bruyère

There are only two ways of getting on in the world: by one's own industry, or by the stupidity of others.

Industry | Stupidity | Wisdom | World |

Raimon Panikkar, fully Raimon Panikkar-Alemany

To look for a purpose in Life outside Life itself amounts to killing Life. Reason is given by Life, not vice versa. Life is prior to meaning... Human life is joyful interrogation. Any answer is blasphemy.

Blasphemy | Life | Life | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Wisdom | Vice |

Reyad NULL

Man was born to be tested on this earth... If I am to live twenty more years, I will try to live enjoying each moment, instead of killing myself to get more... to be a man means to be responsible, to know when it is time to speak, to know what has to be said, to know when one must stay silent.

Earth | Man | Means | Time | Will | Wisdom |

Konrad Adenauer, fully Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer

The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his stupidity and that's just not fair.

Good | Lord | Man | Stupidity | Wisdom |

Omar Bradley, fully Omar Nelson Bradley

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.

Power | War | World |

Omar Bradley, fully Omar Nelson Bradley

We have too many men of science, and too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical midgets. We know more about war than we know of peace, more about killing than we know about living.

Conscience | God | Men | Mystery | Peace | Power | Science | War | Wisdom | World |

Albert Einstein

Only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former.

Stupidity | Universe |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Self-sacrifice of one innocent man is a million times more potent than the sacrifice of a million men who die in the act of killing others.

Man | Men | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice |

Gustave Flaubert

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Good | Health | Stupidity |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

What no human soul desires there is no need to prohibit; it is automatically excluded. The very emphasis of the commandment, Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we spring from an endless ancestry of murderers, with whom the lust for killing was in the blood, as possibly it is to this day with ourselves.

Ancestry | Day | Kill | Lust | Need | Soul |

Edward Keating

You do not destroy an idea by killing people; you replace it with a better one.

Better | Destroy | People |

Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Kill | Will |