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

William Law

Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to his Glory.

Birth | Death | Envy | Existence | Good | Man | Nature | Peace | Power | Self | Soul | Spirit | Will |

William Matthews

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature.

Virtue | Virtue | World | Value |

William James

Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them.

Means | Property | Will |

William Melmoth, wrote under pseudonym Sir Thomas Fitzosborne

Interesting anecdotes afford examples which may be of use in respect to our own conduct.

Applause | Reward | Virtue | Virtue |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

There are a great many men valued in society who have nothing to recommend them but serviceable vices.

Self-interest | Virtue | Virtue |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

There are some people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard there was such a thing.

Virtue | Virtue |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

There are ways which lead to everything, and if we have sufficient will we should always have sufficient means.

Society | Virtue | Virtue | Society |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

People who think they can live mean penance others lie to ourselves, but those who think other people cannot live without him be wrong again.

Enough | Envy | Merit | Pride | Think |

William Shakespeare

O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

Man | Virtue | Virtue |

William Shakespeare

O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. Henry VIII (Wolsey at III, ii)

Beauty | Looks | Play | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Youth | Youth | Beauty |

William Shakespeare

O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.

Books | Good | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Thought |

William Shakespeare

OLIVIA: How does he love me? VIOLA: With adoration, with fertile tears, with groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

Amends | Counsel | Good | Man | Sin | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Counsel |