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

Erik Johannson

I have been doing the photography all my life but I’ve only been doing the manipulations for about four or five years. What takes most time in the production process is the planning. With good planning the other steps don’t take so long. If I have a good idea I will add it to my list of projects that I want to realise. The photography, for me, is a way to get material because my work is created on a computer afterwards. From the idea to the final image, it can take between a week and a month.

Hope | Ideas | Influence | Will |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.

Giving | Thought | Thought |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

Day | Hope | Time |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.

Men | Thought | Thought |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

How much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.

Learning | Life | Life | Little | Man | Nothing | Thought | Time | Wonder | Old | Think | Thought |

Ernest Renan, aka Joseph Ernest Renan

Let us remember that sorrow alone is the creator of great things.

Hope | Pardon | Struggle |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

When mothers talk about the depression of the empty nest, they're not mourning the passing of all those wet towels on the floor, or the music that numbs your teeth, or even the bottle of capless shampoo dribbling down the shower drain. They're upset because they've gone from supervisor of a child's life to a spectator. It's like being the vice president of the United States.

God | Hope | Talent | God |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I learned to understand Cézanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry. Later I thought Cézanne was probably hungry in a different way.

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. And how do you know laughter if there is no pain to compare it with?

Cause | Freedom | Hope | Rumor | Story |

Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith

"Excellence," besought Kai Lung, not without misgivings, "how many warriors, each having some actual existence, are there in your never-failing band?" "For all purposes save those of attack and defence there are fifteen score of the best and bravest, as their pay-sheets well attest," was the confident response. "In a strictly literal sense, however, there are no more than can be seen on a mist-enshrouded day with a resolutely closed eye."

Awareness | Body | Death | Dreams | Fate | Knowledge | Man | Nature | Order | Will | World | Fate | Awareness |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

But walking down the stairs feeling each stair carefully and holding to the banister he thought, I must get her away and get her away as soon as I can without hurting her. Because I am not doing too well at this. That I can promise you. But what else can you do? Nothing, he thought. There's nothing you can do. But maybe, as you go along, you will get good at it.

People | Thought | Think | Thought |

Ernest Becker

Some people are more sensitive to the lie of cultural life, to the illusions of the causa-sui project that others are so thoughtlessly and trustingly caught up in. The neurotic is having trouble with the balance of cultural illusion and natural reality; the possible horrible truth about himself and the world is seeping into his consciousness. The average man is at least secure that the cultural game is the truth, the unshakable, durable truth. He can earn his immortality in and under the dominant immortality ideology, period. It is all so simple and clear-cut. But now the neurotic.

Health | Man | Normality | Order | People | Size | Thinking | World | Trouble |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I am one of those who like to stay late at the cafe, the older waiter said. With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night. I want to go home and into bed. We are of two different kinds, the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night. I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the cafe.

Love | Thought | Think | Thought |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I do not follow you. Many times I do not follow myself with pleasure.

Good | Trouble |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.

Ernest Becker

I have reached far beyond my competence and have probably secured for good a reputation for flamboyant gestures. But the times still crowd me and give me no rest, and I see no way to avoid ambitious synthetic attempts; either we get some kind of grip on the accumulation of thought or we continue to wallow helplessly, to starve amidst plenty. So I gamble with science and write.

Character | Choice | Justification | Order | People | Prison | Reason | Self-esteem | Spirit | Terror | Truth | World | Child |

Ernest Becker

Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem.

Death | Defiance | Excitement |

Ernest Becker

The real world is simply too terrible to admit.

Cause | Ideas | Life | Life | Looks | Man | Order | Question | Rest | Will |

Ernest Becker

Why would a person prefer the accusations of guilt, unworthiness, ineptitude - even dishonor and betrayal- to real possibility? This may not seem to be the choice, but it is: complete self effacement, surrender to the others, disavowal of any personal dignity and freedom-on the one hand; and freedom and independence, movement away from the others, extrication of oneself from the binding links of family and social duties-on the other hand. This is the choice that the depressed person actually faces.

Experience | Love | Man | Nature | Order | Understand |