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

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

Each pursues his own theory, little solicitous to correct or improve it by an attention to what is advanced by his opponents.

Difficulty | Family |

Tibetan Proverbs

By pride one causes virtue to decline.

Family |

William James

A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine proves contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.

Attention | Family | Genius | Man | Power |

William Godwin

Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.

Better | Conduct | Consideration | Family | Father | Improvement | Justice | Justify | Life | Life | Lying | Magic | Man | Sense | Truth | Understanding | Will | Work | Worth | Vice |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

He who lives in our mind is near though he may actually be far away; but he who is not in our heart is far though he may really be nearby.

Family | Fear | Grief |

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

Your castle of earth and stone may be beautiful, but unless you dwell in the fortress of the unchanging, you must depart and leave it behind. So keep to the fortress of the unchanging!

Death | Family | Time | Will |

Eileen Garrett

I am happy that in an age of technology there are those who are giving modern interpretation to the dream world which contains the key to the development of the evolution of the race. The dream world, and the world of deep feeling which is interpreted by symbols, relate to us the ancient races, for the dreams of ancient man and modern man are given in the same symbolic language.

Enough | Family | Hope | Need | Survival | Will |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

I don't for a moment believe that women have suffered the same kind of injustices that blacks have -- women have never been enslaved. But still, many of the psychological and economic problems are the same. This country would go bankrupt in a day if the Supreme Court suddenly ordered the powers-that-be to pay back wages to children of slaves and to the women who've worked all their lives for half wages or no pay.

Family | Future | Government | Men | Government |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Our message is clear. We count. Children count. Everybody counts, so count everybody,

Better | Equality | Example | Family | Organization |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Honey, I'm Brazilian south. I can spend ten years with broken because of a woman I have not even kissed heart.

Example | Family | Mother |

Elizabeth Gilbert

My restlessness makes me a far better day-to-day traveler than he will ever be. I am infinitely curious and almost infinitely patient with mishaps, discomforts, and minor disasters. So I can go anywhere on the planet—that’s not a problem. The problem is that I just can’t live anywhere on the planet.

Family | Man | Marriage | Mother | Peace |

Elizabeth Gilbert

He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.

Family | Happy | Relationship |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I wonder if I am capable of being somebody’s sun, somebody’s everything. Am I centered enough now to be the center of somebody else’s life?

Argument | Family | Friend | Good | History | Ideas | Woman | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Here was something I already knew to be true about myself: Just as there are some wives who will occasionally need a break from their husbands in order to visit a spa for the weekend with their girlfriends, I will always be the sort of wife who occasionally needs a break from her husband in order to visit Cambodia. Just for a few days!

Family | Loneliness | Means | Nature | Will | Worry |

Elizabeth Gilbert

A few weeks ago he said to me, completely ou of nowhere, 'You good friend to me, Liss. Loyal friend.' Then he sighed, stared off into space and added mournfully, ' Not like Sharon.' Who the hell is Sharon? What did she do to him? When I tried asking him about it, he would give me no answer. Acted suddenly like he didn't know who I was even referring to. As if I were the one who'd brought up that thieving hussy Sharon in the first place.)

Family | Mother |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Every intimacy carries secreted somewhere below its initial lovely surfaces, the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.

Family | Marriage | Relationship | Trust |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I became one of those annoying people who always say Ciao! Only I was extra annoying, since I would always explain where the word ciao comes from. (If you must know, it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval Venetians as an intimate salutation: Sono il suo schiavo! Meaning: I am your slave!) Just speaking these words made me feel sexy and happy. My divorce lawyer told me not to worry; she said she had one client (Korean by heritage) who, after a yucky divorce, legally changed her name to something Italian, just to feel sexy and happy again.

Balance | Behavior | Consequences | Depression | Ends | Family | Grief | Need | Panic | People | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

Family |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

What availeth wit when it fails the owner at greatest need?

Body | Family | Good | Health |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.

Family | Resolution | Service | Strength |