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 Jefferson

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in the punishment of rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

Good | Government | Health | Little | Observation | People | Punishment | Rebellion | Rights | Sound | Truth | Wisdom | World |

Thomas Jefferson

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad... freedom of religion, freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of habeas corpus; and trials by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.

Age | Commerce | Freedom of religion | Freedom | Government | Justice | Men | Nations | Peace | Persuasion | Principles | Religion | Revolution | Rights | Trials | Wisdom | Friendship | Government |

Thomas Jefferson

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Earth | Events | God | Government | Mankind | Men | Nature | People | Respect | Right | Wisdom | Government | Respect | God | Truths |

W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy

Let life teach you what spirit it... By conforming to spiritual ideals imposed from the outside through the force of tradition, people often channel themselves into models of behavior that violate their inner essence. We are all guaranteed realization when we strip away our pre-conceived notions about spiritual perfection, give up striving form some idealized end-point called 'enlightenment,' and discover the magnificence of what we already are and live that fully.

Behavior | Enlightenment | Force | Ideals | Life | Life | People | Perfection | Spirit | Teach | Tradition | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.

Experience | God | People | Wisdom |

Karl Jaspers, fully Karl Theodor Jaspers

The will does not choose between good and evil; it is its choice, rather, that makes it good or evil. The act of choosing either liberates it, as good will, or enchains it as ill will. In neither case is there a choice between two possibilities; my will is its own original freedom or anti-freedom.

Choice | Evil | Freedom | Good | Will | Wisdom |

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

If men and women are in chains, anywhere in the world, then freedom is endangered everywhere.

Freedom | Men | Wisdom | World |

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

The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion.

Freedom | Opinion | Uniformity | Unity | Wisdom |

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

We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age - the search for the freedom and self-fulfillment of man.

Age | Birth | Force | Freedom | Fulfillment | Man | Revolution | Search | Self | Wisdom |

Kisho Kurokawa

Architecture (is) a theater stage setting where the leading actors are the people, and to dramatically direct the dialogue between these people and space is the technique of designing.

People | Space | Wisdom |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.

Compensation | Example | Freedom of speech | Freedom of thought | Freedom | People | Speech | Thought | Wisdom |

William Mather Lewis

Today the world is the victim of propaganda because people are not intellectually competent. More than anything in the United States needs effective citizens competent to do their own thinking.

People | Thinking | Wisdom | World | Propaganda | Victim |

Charles Kingsley

If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself; about what you want, what you like, what you respect people ought to pay you, what people think of you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch; you will make sin and misery for yourself out of everything God sends you; you will be as wretched as you choose.

God | Little | Love | Nature | Nothing | People | Respect | Sin | Study | Will | Wisdom | Respect | God | Think |

Hans-Broder Krohn

Feeding the people of the world is no longer a philanthropic project for the missionaries. There will be no peace in this world, until the worst imbalances around the world are eliminated.

Peace | People | Will | Wisdom | World |

Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms inside your head, and people in them, acting.

People | Wisdom | Old |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.

Belief | People | Unbelief | Wisdom |

Charles Lamb

All people have their blind side - their superstitions.

People | Wisdom |

Walter Savage Landor

I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration.

Commerce | Freedom | Men | Mind | Toleration | Tyranny | Wisdom | Commerce |