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

O this learning, what a thing it is!

Opportunity |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

A great many men — some comparatively small men now — if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses.

Competition | Love | Men | Opportunity |

Elias Canetti

A Bookseller might be a King, but a King will never be a Bookseller.

Energy | People |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Was she now to be clapped down under an adjective, to crawl round life-long inside some quality like a fly in a tumbler?

Opportunity |

Elif Safak

As soon as the words were out, sorry. Was preferable to the man considered extremely being a woman, as no other. It should not have to show any of it or another, it is imperfect, vulnerable person like everyone else. If you know that wearing a heart of glass, it will break.

Ability | Art | Practice | Reason | Art |

Elias L. Magoon

He is always the severest censor on the merits of others who has the least worth of his own.

Earth | Energy | God | Rest | Reward | God |

Elias Canetti

Understanding, as we understand it, is misunderstanding.

Enthusiasm | Good | Indignation |

Elif Safak

Now, to appease his conscience when he did the balance of a long life, he had taken this strange journey and was home to a woman with such expectations. The outer walls were the color of ash cherchevetata windows and balcony railings were painted in two different colors - lighter and darker shade of gray. When discrete scenery around the double door were completed, the block shone with dazzling beauty. Most striking feature of the building, which at the insistence of Pavel Pavlovich Antipov was built in the style ar nuvo9, although it was no longer in vogue was that floors were completely different. The apartments on the ground floor, as if to compensate for the lack of balconies were much larger windows than others. As for the balcony, and they were different on each floor. terrace on the second floor were heavily exported forward in graceful semicircle, and those on the third floor were more retracted so that one could easily sit without being visible from the outside. Balcony on the fourth floor were like those of the second, except that instead of metal railings had curb decorated with embossed flowers, and at both ends were attached marble pots, in which you can grow plants. differences were so striking that one wondered Yet if the residents of these apartments they live in the same place. reliefs on the front façade to balance between decoration windows on the first and second floor, very eye-catching. Here in the circle was painted peacock with a small head and a huge body. His five items, two right, two left and one right on the head sticking out of different countries. One pointed toward the sky, and the other - the four cardinal directions. At the end of each feather was painted a large eye, beautifully finished with subtle touches that resemble eyelashes. In complete contrast, the head of the peacock was brought down. Directly below his feet in a faint oval frame was inscribed the initials of the spouses. - Elif Shafak , The Flea Palace

Depression | Global | Opportunity | Reason |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

How old were you when you first realized that your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent, that what they said did not, in fact, go, they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet? Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?

Ability |

Elizabeth Gilbert

How could two people who were so in love not end up happily ever after? It had to work. Didn't it? reunited with fresh hopes, we'd share a few deliriously happy days together. Or sometimes even weeks.

Dirty | Energy | Good | Smile | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Most of humanity, he said, have eyes that are so caked shut with the dust of deception they will never see the truth, no matter who tries to help them.

Energy | Good | Love | People | Qualities | Will | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me.

Ability | Lord | Words |

Elizabeth Gilbert

If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now.

Energy | Good | Love | Qualities | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

But I don't know how much more socializing I can do, Felipe. I only have the one dress. People will start to notice that I'm wearing the same thing all the time. You're young and beautiful, darling. You only need the one dress.

Energy | Good | Love | Money | Qualities | Sense | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

My friend Kate once went to a concert of Mongolian throat singers who were traveling through New York City on a rare world tour. Although she couldn't understand the words to their songs, she found the music almost unbearably sad. After the concert, Kate approached the lead Mongolian singer and asked, What are your songs about? He replied, Our songs are about the same things that everyone else's songs are about: lost love, and somebody stole your fastest horse.

Body | Energy | Friend | Memory | Order | Truth | Understanding | Writing |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!

Ability | Means | Men |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Kalos Kai Agathos, the singular balance of the good and the beautiful.

Energy | Memory | Truth | Writing |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Body | Energy | Fate | Life | Life | Money | Fate |

Elizabeth Gilbert

True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment, and that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer.

Energy |

Elizabeth Gilbert

So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing -- a spontaneous handstand--isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.

Dirty | Energy | Good | Smile | Will |