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

Robert A. Heinlein, fully Robert Anson Heinlein, pen name for Anson MacDonald

A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future.

Future | History | Past | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is no outward sign of courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation.

Courtesy | Rest | Wisdom |

John Grier Hibben

In the pioneer days of our history it was easy to love one's neighbor and respect his rights, when possibly the neighbor lived at a distance of four or five miles and the relations were not intimate enough to occasion a clash of interests. Now one finds that society rather than another individual is his neighbor.

Enough | History | Individual | Love | Respect | Rights | Society | Wisdom | Society | Respect |

George Stillman Hillard

A great man is a gift, in some measure of a revelation of God. A great man, living for high ends, is the divinest thing that can be seen on earth. The value and interest of history are derived chiefly from the lives and services of the eminent men whom it commemorates.

Earth | Ends | God | History | Man | Men | Revelation | Wisdom | Value |

Arsène Houssaye

Imagination, whatever may be said to the contrary, will always hold a place in history, as truth does in romance. Has not romance been penned with history in view?

History | Imagination | Romance | Truth | Will | Wisdom |

David Hume

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behavior.

Action | Behavior | Circumstances | History | Human nature | Mankind | Men | Nature | Nothing | Principles | Wisdom |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

History | Important | Men | Teach | Wisdom | Learn |

Washington Irving

A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure, she embarks her soul in the traffic of affection; and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.

Adventure | Ambition | Avarice | Heart | History | Life | Life | Soul | Wisdom | Woman | World | Ambition |

William James

Religion, in short, is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

History | Religion | Wisdom |

William James

Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

History | Religion | Wisdom |

Anna Jameson

As what we call genius arises out of the disproportionate power and size of a certain faculty, so the great difficulty lies in harmonizing with it the rest of the character.

Character | Difficulty | Genius | Power | Rest | Size | Wisdom |

Elizabeth Janeway, born Elizabeth Ames Hall

If every nation gets the government it deserves every generation writes the history which corresponds with its view of the world.

Government | History | Wisdom | World | Government |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or make it the last.

History | Mankind | Power | Wisdom | World |

Robert Full

The march of Providence is so slow and our desires to impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our mean of aiding it so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing ways, and are thus discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.

History | Hope | Humanity | Individual | Life | Life | Progress | Providence | Wisdom | Work |

Rudyard Kipling

Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.

Cause | History | Nations | Reason | Wisdom |