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

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

Have you seen that portrait Gauguin did of me painting sunflowers? It was really I, but it's I gone mad.

Joy |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

Association | Beauty | Joy | Solitude | Association | Beauty |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

For pain words are lacking. There should be cries, cracks, fissures, whiteness passing over chintz covers, interference with the sense of time, of space ; the sense also of extreme fixity in passing objects ; and sounds very remote and then very close ; flesh being gashed and blood sparting, a joint suddenly twisted - beneath all of which appears something very important, yet remote, to be just held in solitude.

Association | Beauty | Joy | Men | Nature | Solitude | Youth | Association | Youth | Beauty |

Virginia Woolf, nee Stephen, fully Adeline Virginia Woolf

So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.

Joy |

Victor Hugo

He was not willing for there to be any man on earth without a country.

Earth | Experience | Joy |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity--even under the most difficult circumstances--to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

Fighting | Friend | Joy | Need | Order | Risk |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.

Envy | Fear | Future | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Man | People | Pride | Problems | Reality | Reason | Sadness | Tears | Will | Work |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Bring hither by thy shouts, O lord of wealth, the suitor, bend his mind towards her; turn thou the right side of every agreeable suitor towards (her).

Glory | Grace | Joy |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Anybody taking the above resolutions will naturally make efforts to fulfill them.

Joy | Speech |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Do not go about proclaiming that you are a sect, distinct and separate from those who adore God in other Forms and Names; thereby, you are limiting the very God whom you are extolling.

Joy | Life | Life | Will | Happiness |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

It is believed that the soul's attachment with the body remains until the dead-body is not destroyed completely.

Joy |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

By emulating learned ones can one attain wisdom necessary to discriminate between evil and good. These great souls have attained knowledge after great contemplation and hence their wisdom is unquestionable.

Good | Joy | Happiness |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

There are three types of knowledge: Knowledge of matter-energy; knowledge of mental energy; and knowledge of cosmic energy.

Earth | Experience | Joy | Object | Quiet | Silence | Solitude | Time |

Upanishads or The Upanishads NULL

Where there is separateness, one sees another, smells another, tastes another, speaks to another, hears another, touches another, thinks of another, knows another. But where there is unity, one without a second, that is the world of Brahman. This is the supreme goal of life, the supreme treasure, the supreme joy. Those who do not seek this Supreme goal live on but a fraction of this joy. - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Joy | Nature |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.

Capacity | Competition | Good | Guilt | Joy | Will | Work | Child |

Václav Havel

I am referring to respect for the unique human being and his or her liberties and inalienable rights and to the principle that all power derives from the people. I am, in short, referring to the fundamental ideas of modern democracy.

Hope | Joy | Need | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Václav Havel

Man is not an omipotent master of the universe, allowed to do with impunity whatever he thinks, or whatever suits him at the moment. The world we live in is made of an immensely complex and mysterious tissue about which we know very little and which we must treat with utmost humility.

Joy | Knowing | Mission | Virtue | Virtue |

Václav Havel

I think that it is my duty today to remind you as well of the good things that have happened, accomplishments that a year ago we could scarcely have imagined.

Joy | Friends | Think |

Václav Havel

All human suffering concerns each human being.

Joy | Life | Life | Society | System | Uncertainty | Society | Old |

Valmiki NULL

Once Rama gives his word, that is final and it is kept at any cost. There is no question of repetition of the same a second time.

Giving | Joy | Life | Life | Nothing | Prosperity |