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

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.

Giving | Knowing |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

Giving | Government | Religion | Government |

Eustace Budgell

Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shows the nobleness of the soul, as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted.

Conversation | Discretion | Giving | Good | Love | Man | Nothing | Sense |

Euripedes NULL

O lady, nobility is thine, and thy form is the reflection of thy nature!

Rage | Tears |

Euripedes NULL

Hate is a bottomless cup; I will pour and pour

Deeds | Tears | Deeds |

Felix Adler

It is the prerogative of man that he need not blindly follow the law of his natural being, but is himself the author of a higher moral law, and creates it even in acting it out.

Confidence | Giving | Good | Influence | Nature | Nobility | Wisdom | Wise |

Ezra Taft Benson

Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."

Boys | Children | Church | Desire | Family | Future | Giving | Hope | Man | Men | Mission | Prayer | Principles | Reading | Religion | Will | Old |

Ezra Taft Benson

Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any earthly possession. As a United States citizen I believe it is guaranteed in our heaven-inspired Constitution.

Balance | Cause | Church | Counsel | Earth | Freedom | Giving | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mission | People | Play | Position | Present | Prophecy | Satan | Loss | Counsel |

Ezra Taft Benson

In the 1940s while serving as the executive officer of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in Washington, D.C., I saw in a Hilton Hotel a placard depicting Uncle Sam, representing America, on his knees in humility and prayer. Beneath the placard was the inscription, "Not beaten there by the hammer and sickle, but freely, responsibly, confidently. . . We need fear nothing or no one save God." That picture has stayed in my memory ever since; America on her knees in recognition that all our blessings come from God! America on her knees out of a desire to serve the God of this land by keeping his commandments! America on her knees, not driven there in capitulation to some despotic government, but on her knees freely, willingly, gratefully! This is the sovereign remedy to all of our problems and the preservation of our liberties.

Authority | Giving | God | Law | Man | People | Pious | Reflection | Work | God |

Gustave Flaubert

One ought to know everything, to write. All of us scribblers are monstrously ignorant. If only we weren?t lacking in stamina, what a rich field of ideas and similes we could tap! Books that have been the source of entire literatures, like Homer and Rabelais, contain the sum of all the knowledge of their times. They knew everything, those fellows, and we know nothing.

Giving | Life | Life | Training |

Gustave Flaubert

What wretched poverty of language! To compare stars to diamonds!

Little | Right | Tears | Time |

Italian Proverbs

The first blow is as good as two.

Courage | Mankind | Men | Peace | Strength | Tears | Will |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

Giving | Little | Nations | Size |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.

Day | Giving |

Italian Proverbs

You must grease the wheels if you would have the car run.

Absolute | Giving | God | Good | Nothing | Paradise | Talking | God |