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

William Shakespeare

But man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s most assur'd; his glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep. Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Heaven | Love | Power | Thought | Will | Thought |

William Shakespeare

By a divine instinct men's minds distrust ensuing danger, as by proof we see the waters swell before a boisterous storm.

Art | Heaven | Kill | Light | Shame | Will | Art | Think |

William Shakespeare

Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Heaven |

William Shakespeare

But virtue, as it never will be moved, though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, so lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will sate itself in a celestial bed and prey on garbage. Two Gentlemen from Verona, Act ii, Scene 7

Fraud | Heart | Heaven | Love | Tears | Words | Govern |

William Shakespeare

Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows melancholy? Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I, Scene 2

Praise |

William Shakespeare

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i, Scene 1

Heaven | Little | Love | Will | World | Worship |

William Shakespeare

Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall—and farewell king! King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Heaven | Mortal | Nature | Peace |

William Shakespeare

Discretion is the better part of valour. [The better part of valour is discretion.] Henry IV, Part I, Act v, Scene 4

Heaven | Light | Guilty |

William Gurnall

Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.

Heaven |

William Gurnall

It is not only our duty to pray for others, but also to desire the prayers of others for ourselves.

Heaven |

William Gurnall

Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool's coat thither.

Fear | Heaven | Hope |

William James

What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.

Praise |

William James

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

Absolute | Body | Conscience | Consciousness | Education | Energy | God | Heaven | Life | Life | Meaning | Miracles | Present | Religion | Science | World | God | Think |

William Law

Grant that I may worship and pray unto Thee with as much reverence and godly fear, as if I saw the heavens open and all the angels that stand around Thy throne. Amen.

Appreciation | Better | God | Praise | Appreciation | God |

William Law

You are to honor, improve, and perfect the spirit that is within you: you are to prepare it for the kingdom of heaven, to nourish it with the love of God and of virtue, to adorn it with good works, and to make it as holy and heavenly as you can.

Alms | Chastity | God | Heart | Praise | Wills | Work | God |

William James

The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds

Darkness | Dignity | Earth | God | Heaven | God |

William Law

All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.

Desire | Eternity | Heaven | Life | Life | Power | Prayer | Soul |

William Law

As the health and strength or weakness of our bodies is very much owing to their methods of treating us when we were young, so the soundness or folly of our minds is not less owing to those first tempers and ways of thinking which we eagerly received from the love, tenderness, authority, and constant conversation of our mothers.

Beauty | Heaven | Joy | Melody | Nothing | Serenity | Beauty |

William Law

Reformation If it be the earnest desire and longing of your heart to be merciful as He is merciful; to be full of His unwearied patience, to dwell in His unalterable meekness; if you long to be like Him in universal, impartial love; if you desire to communicate every good to every creature that you are able; if you love and practice everything that is good, righteous, and lovely for its own sake, because it is good, righteous, and lovely; and resist no evil but with goodness; then you have the utmost certainty that the Spirit of God dwells and governs in you.

Day | Enjoyment | Good | Heart | Praise | Sense |

William Law

The one supreme, unchangeable rule of love, which is a law to all intelligent beings of all worlds and will be a law to all eternity, is this, viz., that God alone is to be loved for Himself, and all other beings only in Him and for Him. Whatever intelligent creature lives not under this rule of love is so far fallen from the order of his creation, and is, till he returns to this eternal law of love, an apostate from God and incapable of the kingdom of Heaven. Now, if God is alone to be loved for Himself, then no creature is to be loved for itself; and so all self-love in every creature is absolutely condemned. And if all created beings are only to be loved in and for God, then my neighbor is to be loved as I love myself, and I am only to love myself as I love my neighbor or any other created being that is, only in and for God.

Earth | Heaven | Men | Obedience |