Great Throughts Treasury

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

John Pomfret

English Poet and Clergyman

"Custom, the world's great idol."

"Our Understanding they [the passions] with darkness fill, cause strange Conceptions, and pervert the Will."

"Our prepossessions and Affections bind the Soul in Chains and lord it o'er the Mind."

"The Soul which was of purest Angel-kind, the reflex Image of its Maker's Mind."

"The Passions still predominant will rule: uncivil, rude, nor bred in Reason's School."