Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

People

"God's acre was her garden-spot, she said; She sat there often, of the Summer days, little and slim and sweet, among the dead, her hair a fable in the leveled rays." - Dorothy Parker

"I know that an author must be brave enough to chop away clinging tentacles of good taste for the sake of a great work. But this is no great work, you see." - Dorothy Parker

"If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you." - Dorothy Parker

"I'll think about something else. I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still, maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other, truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know it's a lie, it's a God-damned lie? What do they have to tell about that for, when they know how it hurts?" - Dorothy Parker

"I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that anymore." - Dorothy Parker

"Oh, both my shoes are shiny new, and pristine is my hat my dress is 1922… My life is all like that." - Dorothy Parker

"Occupying my mind with complex problems has been my best and most powerful and most reliable defense against my mental illness." - Elyn Saks

"Portray [people with mental illness] sympathetically, and portray them in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, and not as diagnoses." - Elyn Saks

"There are lots of misconceptions about schizophrenia, [like that] patients are truly wild. In fact, of all the major mental illnesses, they're the least violent. People can't hold jobs, certainly not high-powered jobs...Can't have close friends and family. Can't live independently. A lot of those have some truth; they're true of a certain portion of people with schizophrenia. But it seems to me that a lot more than is now the case could be leading far more gratifying [lives]. When you tell someone, 'you're not going to be able to work,' or 'scale down your expectations,' then they do. And yet work gives most people so much of a sense of well-being, productivity. You're taking away from someone a thing that could be an important tool in their recovery by having these kind of negative expectations." - Elyn Saks

"We must stop criminalizing mental illness. It's a national tragedy and scandal that the L.A. County Jail is the biggest psychiatric facility in the United States." - Elyn Saks

"Moreover, no one is judged from the natural man, thus not so long as he lives in the natural world, for man is then in a natural body; but everyone is judged in the spiritual man, and therefore when he comes into the spiritual world, for man is then in a spiritual body." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"So far any one shuns evils, so far as he does good." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"Such as the love is, such is the wisdom, consequently such is the man." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"The Lord withdraws no one from their hell unless they see that they are in hell and wish to be led out." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"The Lord’s church is spread over the whole globe, and so is universal. All who live a good life according to their own religious belief are members of it. Heaven is of such a nature that all who have lived well, of whatever religion, have a place there." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand most secret ways." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"A phantom cannot be cured, still less an enlightened mind. We can only cure those who belong to the earth and still have their roots in it, however superficial." - Emil M. Cioran

"All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical exile" had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one." - Emil M. Cioran

"Vengeance is a delicious fruit, which must be allowed to ripen in order that it may be fully enjoyed." - Emile Gaboriau

"An entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl." - Emile Zola

"And then there was pain and blood and tears, all those things that cause suffering and revolt, the killing of Françoise, the killing of Fouan, vice triumphing, and the stinking, bloodthirsty peasants, vermin who disgrace and exploit the earth. But can you really know? Just as the frost that burns the crops, the hail that chops them down, the thunderstorms which batter them are all perhaps necessary, maybe blood and tears are needed to keep the world going. And how important is human misery when weighed against the mighty mechanism of the stars and the sun? What does God care for us? We earn our bread only by dint of a cruel struggle, day in, day out. And only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play." - Emile Zola

"As they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so." - Emile Zola

"In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end." - Emile Zola

"In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29 July 1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily." - Emile Zola

"It was at times like this that one of those waves of bestiality ran through the mine, the sudden lust of the male that came over a miner when he met one of these girls on all fours, with her rear in the air and her buttocks busting out of her breeches." - Emile Zola

"The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, frustrated by their bad luck, and ready to use any means necessary to advance their cause. They were a family of bandits lying in wait, ready to plunder and steal." - Emile Zola

"These young people naturally grow up with ideas different from ours, for they are born for times when we shall no longer be here." - Emile Zola

"The land free, the land free for all, land without overseers and without masters." - Emiliano Zapata, fully Emiliano Zapata Salazar

"He ate and drank the precious words, his spirit grew robust; he knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was dust. He danced along the dingy days, and this bequest of wings was but a book. What liberty a loosened spirit brings!" - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"How dreary — to be — Somebody! How public — like a Frog — to tell one's name — the livelong June -To an admiring Bog." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy." - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"We dream — it is good we are dreaming — it would hurt us — were we awake —but since it is playing — kill us, and we are playing — shriek — What harm? Men die — externally —it is a truth — of Blood —but we — are dying in Drama —and Drama — is never dead — cautious — We jar each other —and either — open the eyes — lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake —and the livid Surprise. Cool us to Shafts of Granite —with just an Age — and Name — and perhaps a phrase in Egyptian — it's prudenter — to dream —" - Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

"And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!" - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me - now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking - I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been laboring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"It's a pity he cannot kill himself with drink." - Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

"Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man." - Emma Goldman

"Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime." - Emma Goldman

"It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on." - Emma Goldman

"Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as one who develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in danger. A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist -- the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force." - Emma Goldman

"The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events." - Emma Goldman

"The period of the actual revolution, the so-called transitory stage, must be the introduction, the prelude to the new social conditions. It is the threshold to the NEW LIFE, the new HOUSE OF MAN AND HUMANITY. As such it must be of the spirit of the new life, harmonious with the construction of the new edifice." - Emma Goldman

"The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow. All pioneers of truth have been, and still are, reviled; they have been, and still are, persecuted. But did they ask humanity to pay the price? Did they seek to bribe mankind to accept their ideas? They knew too well that he who accepts a truth because of the bribe, will soon barter it away to a higher bidder... Proud and self-reliant characters prefer hatred to such sickening artificial love. Not because of any reward does a free spirit take his stand for a great truth, nor has such a one ever been deterred because of fear of punishment." - Emma Goldman

"Woman, essentially a purist, is naturally bigoted and relentless in her effort to make others as good as she thinks they ought to be." - Emma Goldman

"Jews are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt." - Emma Lazarus

"Claim your divine, glorious selfhood. Think it, talk it, live it and it will demonstrate itself in your life." - Emmet Fox

"God is fully present here with me, now. God is the only real Presence, all the rest is but a shadow. God is perfect Good, and God is the cause only of perfect Good. The same fountain cannot send forth both sweet and bitter water. God never sends sickness, trouble, accident, temptation, nor death itself; nor does He authorize these things. I am divine spirit. I am a child of God. In God I live and move and have my being; so I do not fear. I am surrounded by the Presence of God and all is well. I am not afraid of the past; I am not afraid of the present; I am not afraid of the future; for God is with me. The Eternal God is my dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms. Nothing can touch me but the direct action of God Himself, and God is Love." - Emmet Fox

"Minutes spent in praying for wisdom will save hours spent in overtaking your mistakes." - Emmet Fox

"One of the first rules on the spiritual path is that you must attend strictly to your own business and not interfere with that of others. Your neighbor's life is sacred and you have no right to try to manage it for him. Let him alone. God has given him free will and self-determination, so why should you interfere? Many well-meaning people are constantly "butting in"" to their neighbors' lives without invitation. They pretend to themselves that their only desire is to help, but this is self-deception. It is really a desire to interfere. Interference always does more harm than good. Actually those who mind other people's business always neglect their own. The man who wants to put your house in order has always made a failure of his own life. M.Y.O.B. Of course, this does not mean that you are not to help people whenever you can; in fact, you should make it a rule to try to do at least one kind act every day; but you must do it without interfering or encroaching. When in doubt, claim Divine Guidance. It is always right to give your neighbor the right thought. Under any circumstances it can only do good to "Golden Key" him when you think of him. Don't fuss - God is running the universe." - Emmet Fox

"Prayer is always the solution. No matter what kind of difficulty may be facing you, no matter how complicated your problem may seem – prayer can solve it. Of course you will also take whatever practical steps seem to be indicated, and if you do not know what steps to take, prayer will show you. Prayer is constantly bringing about the seemingly impossible, and there is no conceivable problem that has not at some time been solved by prayer." - Emmet Fox

"The birth of that marvelous wish in your soul-the dawning of that secret dream-was the Voice of God himself telling you to arise and come up higher because he had need of you." - Emmet Fox