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

A young man married is a man that 's marr'd. All 's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Comedy | Patience | Quiet | Right | Will |

William Shakespeare

A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, Scene 4

Quiet |

William Shakespeare

All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? Much Ado About Nothing (Conrade at III, iii)

Burial | Change | Melancholy | Office |

William Shakespeare

CELIA: Not a word? ROSALIND: Not one to throw at a dog.

Fortune | Good | Mistake | Nature | Office | Wit | Woman |

William Godwin

For there is such a thing as a broken spirit.

Authority | Censure | Energy | Indulgence | Man | Nothing | Quiet | Reality | Reason | Silence | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

William Godwin

Either the nation whose tyrant you would destroy is ripe for the assertion and maintenance of its liberty, or it is not. If it be, the tyrant ought to be deposed with every appearance of publicity. Nothing can be more improper than for an affair, interesting to the general weal, to be conducted as if it were an act of darkness and shame. It is an ill lesson we read to mankind, when a proceeding, built upon the broad basis of general justice, is permitted to shrink from public scrutiny. The pistol and the dagger may as easily be made the auxiliaries of vice, as of virtue. To proscribe all violence, and neglect no means of information and impartiality, is the most effectual security we can have, for an issue conformable to reason and truth.

Force | Man | Mind | Office | Right | Sense | Suffering | Truth | Wrong |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.

Life | Life | People | Quiet | Universe |

William Shakespeare

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables—meet it is i set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!

Comedy | Office |

William Shakespeare

O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear!

Endurance | God | Good | Hell | Life | Life | Man | Past | People | Quiet | Scholar | Sin | Thinking | God |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

Deal impartially with the legal complaints which are submitted to you. If the man who is to decide suits at law makes gain his motive, and hears cases with a view to receiving bribes, then the suits of the rich man will be like a stone flung into water, meeting no resistance, while the complaints of the poor will be like water thrown upon a stone. In these circumstances the poor man will not know where to go, nor will he behave as he should.

Business | Office | People | Public | Work | Business |

Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

The hanging gate, of something like trelliswork, was propped on a pole, and he could see that the house was tiny and flimsy. He felt a little sorry for the occupants of such a place--and then asked himself who in this world had a temporary shelter.

Better | Cause | Enough | Generosity | Guidance | Husband | Little | Magnanimity | Man | Means | Memory | Patience | Quiet | Resentment | Wife | Will | Woman | Guidance | Guilty |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

Good faith is the foundation of right. In everything let there be good faith, for if the lord and the vassal keep faith with one another, what cannot be accomplished? If the lord and the vassal do not keep faith with each other, everything will end in failure.

Antiquity | Duty | Man | Men | Office | Praise | Right | Sound | Will | Wise |

William Shakespeare

Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

Office |

William Shakespeare

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote; spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, and as a bed I'll take them, and there lie.

Disgrace | Office |

William Shakespeare

Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day.

Grave | Men | Pain | Pleasure | Quiet | Rage | Rest | Weapons | Will | Old |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?

Cause | Happy | Observation | Quiet | Statistics | Work | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

The appreciation of pleasure can be the anchor of humanity.

Alchemy | Quiet |

Elizabeth Gilbert

So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are correct, but in only one respect - only if they happen to be talking about Judaism. Christianity simply does not share that deep and consistent historical reverence toward matrimony. Lately it has, yes- but not originally. For the first thousand or so years of Christian history, the church regarded monogamous marriage as marginally less wicked that flat-out whoring but only very marginally.

Care | Death | Depression | Friend | Lending | Life | Life | Loneliness | Love | Mind | Mistake | Need | Nothing | Office | Reason | Reflection | Sadness | Security | Time | Waiting | Will | Writing |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Love | Men | Passion | Quiet | Old |