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

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

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.

Generosity | Order |

Dugald Stewart

It ought not to be the leading object of any one to become an eminent metaphysician, mathematician, or poet, but to render himself happy as an individual, and an agreeable, a respectable, and a useful member of society.

Mind | Order | Power | Understand |

William Shakespeare

Our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers, which is both healthful and good husbandry.

Order |

William Shakespeare

Playing in the wanton air: through the velvet leaves the wind all unseen, gan passage find; that the lover, sick to death, wish'd himself the heaven's breath, 'air,' quoth he, 'thy cheeks may blow; air, would I might triumph so! But, alas! My hand hath sworn ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn: vow, alack! For youth unmeet: youth, so apt to pluck a sweet. Do not call it sin in me that I am forsworn for thee thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were; turning mortal for thy love.

Order |

William Shakespeare

One that hath been a courtier, and says, if ladies be but young and fair, they have the gift to know it.

Love | Waiting | Wisdom | Think |

Saichō NULL

Buddhist temples are of three types. I. Temples which are strictly Mahāyāna. These are temples where bodhisattva monks who are new to training reside. II. Temples which are strictly Hīnayāna. These are temples where only the Hīnayāna and vinaya teachers reside. III. Temples where both Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna practice together. These are temples where bodhisattva monks who have trained for a long time reside. Now in the Tendai Lotus School the annual ordinands [candidates for ordination] are all new practitioners who have all directed their minds to the Mahāyāna and for twelve years will be made to reside deep in the mountains at the temple Shishu Sanmai-in 四種三昧院. Upon completion of their training they will provisionally receive the lesser [Hīnayāna] precepts as it benefits others and they will be permitted to provisionally reside in a temple where both [Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna] practices are carried out.

Man | Object | People | Thought | Time | Waiting | Wrong | Child | Thought |

Dong Zhongshu, aka Dǒng Zhòngshū or Tung Chung-shu

All phenomena are intricately and dynamically interrelated.

Cleanliness | Devotion | Love | Order | Gossip |

Edward Scribner Ames

In the same winter quarter, beginning in January, 1896, I taught a class for the Disciples Divinity House, in the divinity school of the university, on the theology of Alexander Campbell. This enabled me to work over again the relation of his thought to that of John Lock, which had so much interested me while I was working on my thesis the previous year. With a class of eight graduate students it was possible to have reports and discussions on various problems. Our excitement ran high, for the “discovery” of the relation between Campbell and Locke gave new meaning to Disciple history and placed it in a stream of thought that was influencing modern science and philosophy with what Locke himself called “a new way of ideas.” It was the empirical and pragmatic temper applied in religious matters. This meant not only a lessened emphasis upon traditional theology and speculative metaphysics but a refection of their assumptions and methods. Like Locke, Campbell also rejected the “inner light” and “enthusiasm” as grounds for religious assurance. Both held to the possibility of revelation, but both insisted that any alleged revelation must be brought to the test of reason.

Faith | Hope | Truth | Waiting |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Among these, the five organs of cognition are concerned with specific and non-specific objects. Speech is concerned with sound; the rest are concerned with all five objects.

Abundance | Order |

Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

An attendant came up, bowing deeply. The white flowers far off yonder are known as 'evening faces, he said. A very human sort of name--and what a shabby place they have picked to bloom in.It was as the man said. The neighborhood was a poor one, chiefly of small houses. Some were leaning precariously, and there were evening faces at the sagging eaves. A hapless sort of flower. Pick one off for me, will you? The man went inside the raised gate and broke off a flower. A pretty little girl in long, unlined yellow trousers of raw silk came out through a sliding door that seemed too good for the surroundings. Beckoning to the man, she handed him a heavily scented white fan. Put it on this. It isn't much of a fan, but then it isn't much of a flower either.

Man | Order | Public | Resentment | Will |

Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

Well, we never expected this! they all say. No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether! How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am.

Attention | Beginning | Enlightenment | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Nothing | Order | People | Wishes | World | Old |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

If husband and wife have the habit of staying together, never leaving one another, and following each other around within the limited space of their own rooms, then they will lust after and take liberties with one another. From such action improper language will arise between the two This kind of discussion may lead co licentiousness. But of licentiousness will be born a heart of disrespect to the husband. Such a result comes from not knowing that one should stay in one's proper place.

Authority | Conduct | Control | Husband | Men | Nothing | Order | Purpose | Purpose | Relationship | Wife |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

Let a woman retire late to bed, but rise early to duties; let her nor dread tasks by day or by night. Let her not refuse to perform domestic duties whether easy or difficult. That which must be done, let her finish completely, tidily, and systematically, When a woman follows such rules as these, then she may be said to be industrious.

Character | Love | Order | Principles | Purity | Woman | Gossip |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

I’m just like this speed bump in the middle, slowing everyone down because I keep fucking up.

Waiting | Think |

Elihu Root

Science has been arranging, classifying, methodizing, simplifying, everything except itself. It has made possible the tremendous modern development of power of organization which has so multiplied the effective power of human effort as to make the differences from the past seem to be of kind rather than of degree. It has organized itself very imperfectly. Scientific men are only recently realizing that the principles which apply to success on a large scale in transportation and manufacture and general staff work to apply them; that the difference between a mob and an army does not depend upon occupation or purpose but upon human nature; that the effective power of a great number of scientific men may be increased by organization just as the effective power of a great number of laborers may be increased by military discipline.

Art | Opinion | Order | Patience | People | Skill | Study | Sympathy | Will | Wishes | Art | Learn |

Elihu Root

In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought.

Individual | Man | Men | Order | Theories |

Elias Canetti

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.

Order |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

The third day was nearly all wet, though it cleared towards evening and a fine sunset crimsoned the canal. Today it had come on about lunch time, a different rain; finer, gentler, more inexorable, that made the air woolly, left a muddy taste in one’s mouth and dulled everything.

Earth | Waiting |

Elif Safak

Try not to resist the changes that come in your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not be afraid that your life is turned upside down. How do you know that what you're used to is better than the things that will come?

Earth | God | Love | Order | Rule | Time | Will | God |