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

Samuel Gompers

I do not want it understood that my vote can be purchased for a beefsteak, but that I will vote always for measures that will improve the condition of the workingmen.

Hope | Justice | Labor | Principles | Struggle | Will | Think |

Samuel Gompers

The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.

Democracy | Desire | Fighting | Force | Peace | Principles | Spirit | Understanding | War | World |

Samuel Gompers

There are about 8,000,000 negroes in the United States, and, my friends, I not only have not the power to put the negro out of the labor movement, but I would not, even if I did have the power. . . . Why should I do such a thing? . . . . I would have nothing to gain, but the movement would have much to lose. Under our policies and principles we seek to build up the labor movement, instead of injuring it, and we want all the negroes we can possibly get who will join hands with organized labor.

Labor | People | Policy | Principles | Regard | Rights |

Samuel Gompers

The 14th and 15th amendments, no matter what we thought of them, are part of the Constitution. Negroes are now equal with the white man.

Battle | Crime | Defense | Hope | Justice | Principles | Sacrifice | War | Will |

Samuel Gompers

There are some men who can never understand political action unless there is a party.

Labor | Nothing | Power | Principles | Will |

Samuel Gompers

You are our employers not our masters. Under the system of government we have in the United States, we are your equals, and we contribute as much, if not more, to the success of industry than do the employers.

Doctrine | Effort | Force | Men | Principles | Suffering | Will |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

Esteem | Love |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness, than confers pleasure. We are more pained by ignorance, than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul.

Conversation | Knowledge | Man | Principles |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinion, because we very often differ from ourselves.

Action | Error | Life | Life | Mankind | Principles | Time |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

Children | Choice | Inquiry | Life | Life | Light | Little | Marriage | Parents | Principles | Society | Will | Wonder | Society |

Samuel Smiles

Hope ... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles.

Conduct | Important | Principles |

Samuel Pepys

Great fear of the sicknesses here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.

Business | Esteem | Music | Nature | Pleasure | Will | Business | Forgive |

Samuel Pepys

I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it.

Business | Esteem | Nature | Pleasure | Will | Following | Business |

Simone Weil

There is no detachment where there is no pain. And there is no pain endured without hatred or lying unless detachment is present too.

Absolute | Abstract | Age | Capitalism | Democracy | Ideas | Means | Play | Principles | Sacrifice | Science | Time | Universe | Words |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his opinions upon the Milky Way.

Principles | Reason |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.

Little | Principles |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic.

Excitement | Principles |

Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

Let us then take care not to despise these things. How absurd it would be to grasp at money and throw away health; and to be lavish of the cleansing of the body, but economical over the cleansing of the soul; and to seek for freedom from earthly slavery, but not to care about heavenly freedom; and to make every effort to be splendidly housed and dressed, but to have never a thought how you yourself may become really very precious; and to be zealous to do good to others, without any desire to do good to yourself. And if good could be bought, you would spare no money; but if mercy is freely at your feet, you despise it for its cheapness. Every time is suitable for your ablution, since any time may be your death. With Paul I shout to you with that loud voice, ‘Behold now is the accepted time; behold Now is the day of salvation.

Adversity | Attention | Esteem | Nothing | Prosperity | Sin | Virtue | Virtue |

Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.

Principles |