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

Dorothy Parker

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Dread | Dreams | Hate | Love | Peace | Soul | Spirit | Thought | World | Thought |

Emile Zola

It all seemed a hollow sham now - that strict code, that conscientious virtue that condemned her to the sterile joys of pious women! No, no, she'd had enough of that; she wanted to live!

Display | Joy | Little | Lying | Style |

Emile Zola

And the whole garden was engulfed together with the couple in one last cry of love's passion. The tree-trunks bent as under a powerful wind. The blades of grass emitted sobs of intoxication. The flowers, fainting, lips half-open, breathed out their souls. The sky itself, aflame with the setting of the great star, held its clouds motionless, faint with love, whence superhuman rapture fell. And it was the victory of all the wild creatures, all plants and all things natural, which willed the entry of these two children into the eternity of life.

Kill | Life | Life | Nothing |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

If the stillness is Volcanic in the human face when upon a pain Titanic features keep their place- If at length the smoldering anguish will not overcome- and the palpitating Vinyard in the dust, be overthrown?

Body |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?

Emile Zola

He mused on this village of his, which had sprung up in this place, amid the stones, like the gnarled undergrowth of the valley. All Artaud's inhabitants were inter-related, all bearing the same surname to such an extent that they used double-barrelled names from the cradle up, to distinguish one from another. At some antecedent date an ancestral Artaud had come like an outcast, to establish himself in this waste land. His family had grown with the savage vitality of the vegetation, drawing nourishment from this stone till it had become a tribe, then the tribe turned to a community, till they could not sort out their cousinage, going back for generations. They inter-married with unblushing promiscuity.

Body |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine -- If he love with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him -- Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse -- It is not in him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not?

Church | Purpose | Purpose |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

Why did you betray your own heart Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. ... You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? Because ... nothing God or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of you own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - oh God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave? [...] I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?

Doubt | Looks | Reputation | Shame |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

They say that God is everywhere and yet we always think of him as somewhat of a recluse.

Need | Smile |

Emma Lazarus

The New Colossus - Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land; here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

English Proverbs

A great fortune is a great slavery.

English Proverbs

He that has no charity deserves no mercy.

English Proverbs

Better deny at once than promise long.

English Proverbs

Fish and company stink in three days.

English Proverbs

Too much knowledge makes the head bald.

English Proverbs

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

English Proverbs

Too much of a good thing is good for nothing.

Knowledge |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a other must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

English Proverbs

You may lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.