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 (Morley Punshon) McFee

Doing what's right is no guarantee against misfortune.

Ideas | Man |

William James

The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.

Ideas | Men |

William James

Whenever two men meet there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man was the other sees him, and each man as he really is.

Reality |

William Law

The pure, mere love of God is that alone from which sinners are justly to expect that no sin will pass unpunished, but that His love will visit them with every calamity and distress that can help to break and purify the bestial heart of man and awaken in him true repentance and conversion to God. It is love alone in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right band, which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his own salvation.

Agony | Body | Death | Eternal | Force | Man | Mortal | Progress | Reality |

William James

These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Individual | Reality |

William Matthews

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but they cease to love.

Enjoyment | Ideas |

William James

Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.

Education | Failure | Ideas | Means | Mind | Nothing | Failure | Vicissitudes |

William James

The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.

Belief | Existence | Life | Life | Mind | Object | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Sense | Sentiment |

William Law

If there be nothing so glorious as doing good, if there is nothing that makes us so like God, then nothing can be so glorious in the use of our money as to use it all in works of love and goodness.

Ends | Hope | Ideas | Religion | World |

Drew Curtis

I love Sweden. The entire world should be like Sweden. They all like to drink and get naked, and the women are hot. I can't think of a better nation on the planet.

Argument | Giving | Guarantee | Judgment | Reality | Will |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

The pleasure of love is in the loving; and there is more joy in the passion one feels than in that which one inspires.

Distrust | Injustice | Injustice | Reality | Self-interest |

Edward Scribner Ames

It may be said that the supreme revelation is to be found in Jesus Christ and that all the rest of the Bible leads up to him. Yet there are two ways of accepting the words and example of Jesus. One is to take what he says as true because he says it, and another is to believe it because it stands the test of reflection and experience. When his way of life has been confirmed by the demands of intelligence and of practical life, it has gained the deepest security and made its strongest claims upon our loyalty.

Association | Change | Divinity | Ideas | Life | Life | Nature | People | Psychology | Sense | Sin | Strength | Association |

Edwin Percy Whipple

Men educate each other in reason by contact or collision, and keep each other sane by the very conflict of their separate hobbies. Society as a whole is the deadly enemy of the particular crotchet of each, and solitude is almost the only condition in which the acorn of conceit can grow to the oak of perfect self-delusion.

Ideas | Lying |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

I know a good many people, I think, who are bigots, and who know they are bigots, and are sorry for it, but they dare not be anything else.

Ideas | Soul |

Egyptian Proverbs

In every vital activity it is the path that matters.

Reality |

Elizabeth Bibesco

We learn nothing by being right.

Ideas |

Albert Einstein

I have no possibility to bring the money you sent me to the appropriate receiver. I return it therefore in recognition of your good heart and intention. Your letter shows me also that wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

Ideas | Knowledge | Relationship | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I lose count of how many bottles of Sardinian wine we drink before Deborah introduces to the table the suggestion that we follow a nice American custom here tonight by joining hands-and each in turn-saying what we are most grateful for. In three languages, then, this montage of gratitude comes forth, one testimony at a time.

Eternal | Ideas | Life | Life | Tomorrow | World | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don't know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do...

Emotions | Ideas | Mind |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it's more like love's shady second cousin who's always borrowing money and can't hold down a job.

Dogma | Ideas | Will |