Great Throughts Treasury

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

Rufus Choate

American Lawyer and Orator

"A book is the only immortality."

"Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument."

"All that happens in the world of nature and man - every war, every peace, every horn of prosperity, every horn of adversity, every election, every death, every life, every success and every failure, all change, all permanence, the perished leer, the unutterable glory of stars - all things speak truth in the thoughtful spirit."

"Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love for reading."

"The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good."

"Appropriated to justice, to security, to reason, to restraint; where there is no respect of persons; where will is nothing and power is nothing and numbers are nothing, and all are equal and all secure before the law."

"It’s Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence."

"Mathematics may be briefly defined as the science of quantities, and is one of the most important of disciplining studies which engage the practical student."

"Power, carried to extremes, is always liable to reaction."

"We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution."

"The glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the declaration of independence."

"We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the American flag, and keep step to the music of the Union."

"You don’t want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power."