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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be always resolute with the present hour. Every moment is of infinite value; for it is the representative of eternity.

Eternity | Present | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

Character | Light | Mind | Style | Wisdom |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

We know well enough how little light science has so far been able to throw on the problems that surround us. But however much ado the philosophers may make, they cannot alter the situation. Only patient, persevering research, in which everything is subordinated to the one requirement of certainty, can gradually bring about a change.

Change | Enough | Light | Little | Problems | Research | Science | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation; the two keep pace in their downward tendency.

Literature | Wisdom |

Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot

A state is a perfect body of free men, united together in order to enjoy common rights and advantages.

Body | Men | Order | Rights | Wisdom |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

The intellect of the wise is like glass. It admits the light of heaven and reflects it.

Heaven | Light | Wisdom | Wise | Intellect |

Garrett Hardin, fully Garrett James Hardin

Beyond the limits of his confining skin, no man can own any thing. “Property” refers not to things owned but to the rights granted by society; they must periodically be re-examined in the light of social justice.

Justice | Light | Man | Property | Rights | Society | Wisdom |

Anna Lorette Rose Hawkes

Our past is our heritage, our present is our responsibility, and our future is our destiny.

Destiny | Future | Past | Present | Responsibility | Wisdom |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

A single mind can acquire a fair knowledge of the whole field of science, and find plenty of time to spare for ordinary human affairs. Not many people take the trouble to do so. But without a knowledge of science one cannot understand current events. That is why our modern our modern literature and art are mostly so unreal.

Art | Events | Knowledge | Literature | Mind | People | Plenty | Science | Time | Wisdom | Trouble | Art | Understand |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

People | Present | Religion | Reverence | Soul | Wisdom |

Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg

We cannot know as a matter of principle, the present in all its details.

Present | Wisdom |

John Hallock

I've noticed two things about men who get big salaries. They are almost invariably men who, in conversation or in conference, are adaptable. They quickly get the other fellow's view. They are more eager to do this than to express their own ideas. Also, they state their own point of view convincingly.

Conversation | Ideas | Men | Wisdom |

Heinrich Heine

Like a great poet, Nature produces the greatest results with the simplest means. These are simply a sun, flowers, water and love. Of course, if the spectator be without the last, the whole will present but a pitiful appearance; and, in that case, the sun is merely so many miles in diameter, the trees are good for fuel, the flowers are classified by stamens, and the water is simply wet.

Appearance | Good | Love | Means | Nature | Present | Will | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The present moment is a powerful deity.

Present | Wisdom |

Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"

God has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them.

God | Heart | Light | Wisdom |

Edith Hamilton

A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.

Day | Knowledge | Literature | People | Wisdom |

Philip G. Hamerton, fully Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Of all intellectual friendships, none are so beautiful as those which subsist between old and ripe men and their younger brethren in science or literature or art. It is by; these private friendships, even more than by public performance, that the tradition of sound thinking and great doing is perpetuated from age to age.

Age | Art | Literature | Men | Public | Science | Sound | Thinking | Tradition | Wisdom | Old |