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

Michel Foucault

I believe that the political significance of the problem of sex is due to the fact that sex is located at the point of intersection of the discipline of the body and the control of the population.

Body | Control | Discipline | Wisdom |

Environment Pollution Panel NULL

The pervasive nature of pollution, its disregard of political boundaries including state lines, the national character of the technical, economic and political problems involved, and the recognized Federal responsibilities for administering vast public lands which can be changed by pollution, for carrying out large enterprises which can produce pollutants, for preserving and improving the nation’s natural resources, all make it mandatory that the Federal Government assume leadership and exert its influence in pollution abatement on a national scale.

Character | Government | Influence | Nature | Problems | Public | Wisdom | Government | Leadership |

Henry Ford

There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.

Money | Power | Will | Wisdom | World |

Charles James Fox

All political power is a trust.

Power | Trust | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.

Ambition | Appetite | Fortune | Good | Indulgence | Present | Wisdom |

Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.

Man | War | Wisdom |

French National Assembly - Declaration of the Rights of Man NULL

The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.

Liberty | Man | Oppression | Property | Rights | Security | Wisdom |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

It may be difficult, too, for many of us, to abandon the belief that there is an instinct towards perfection at work in human beings, which has brought them to their present high level of intellectual achievement and ethical sublimation and which may be expected to watch over their development as supermen. I have no faith, however, in the existence of any such internal instinct and I cannot see how this benevolent illusion is to be preserved. The present development of human beings requires, as it seems to me, no different explanation from that of animals. What appears in a minority of human individuals as an untiring impulsion towards further perfection can easily be understood as a result of the instinctual repression upon which is based all that is most precious in human civilization.

Achievement | Belief | Civilization | Existence | Faith | Illusion | Instinct | Perfection | Present | Wisdom | Work |

William Ewart Gladstone

Selfishness does not grow in intensity as we move downward in society from class to class.

Selfishness | Society | Wisdom | Society |

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

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

Art | Enjoyment | Judgment | Wisdom | Work | Art |

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 |

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 |

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 |

John Gunther

Politicians... rise predominantly from... the "lower middle class"; most are self-made men... ; most depend on their political jobs for their livelihood and most have little time, inclination, or opportunity for adult education; hence the dominating qualities of so many are greed, vulgarity, attention to special interest, avarice, and selfishness.

Attention | Avarice | Education | Greed | Inclination | Little | Men | Opportunity | Qualities | Self | Selfishness | Time | Vulgarity | Wisdom |

Huang Po, also Huángbò Xīyùn

On perceiving any individual's mind, you perceive all mind. Glimpse one truth, and all truth is present in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Truth.

Individual | Mind | Present | Truth | Vision | Wisdom |

Hugh Price Hughes

What a man generally means when he says that he is not a politician I am afraid is this - that he has been all his life enjoying his political privileges and neglecting his political duties.

Life | Life | Man | Means | Wisdom | Afraid |