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

Friedrich Engels

Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives or systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves - two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject.

Capacity | Character | Ends | Existence | Freedom | Good | Knowledge | Means | Men | Nature | Nothing | Reality | Thought | Will | Work | Govern | Thought |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Deliverance is out of time into eternity, and is achieved by obedience and docility to the eternal Nature of Things. We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a “state of grace.” All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine Reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it.

Character | Docility | Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Free will | Grace | Nature | Obedience | Order | Power | Reality | Self | Spirit | Time | Will |

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Self-government, self-discipline, self-responsibility are the triple safeguards of the independence of man.

Character | Discipline | Government | Man | Responsibility | Self |

Robert Southey

That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendacity its salutary shame.

Character | Charity | Pride | Shame |

Albert Einstein

The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence - these are the features of Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it.

Desire | Justice | Knowledge | Love | Tradition | Wisdom |

Bernard F. Gimbel

Economic independence doesn't set anyone free. Or it shouldn't, for the higher up you go, the more responsibilities become yours.

Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou reach the point of happiness and independence shall by thy shield and buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright nor stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds.

Abuse | Honesty | Riches | Soul | Wisdom | Happiness |

Philip G. Hamerton, fully Philip Gilbert Hamerton

As there is no pleasure in military life for a soldier who fears death, so there is no independence in civil existence for the an who has an overpowering dread of solitude.

Death | Dread | Existence | Life | Life | Pleasure | Solitude | Wisdom |

Thomas Jefferson

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.

Body | Character | Mind | Wisdom |

Abraham Lincoln

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? ... Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us... Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Cunning | Destroy | Genius | God | Liberty | Love | Rights | Spirit | Wisdom | God |

Stefan Zweig

It is a consoling fact that, in the end, the moral independence of mankind remains indestructible. Never has it been possible for a dictatorship to enforce one religion or one philosophy upon the whole world. Nor will it ever be possible, for the spirit always escapes from servitude; refuses to think in accordance with prescribed forms, to become shallow and supine at the word of command, to allow uniformity to be permanently imposed upon it.

Mankind | Philosophy | Religion | Servitude | Spirit | Uniformity | Will | Wisdom | World | Think |

Louis K. Anspacher, fully Louis Kannan Anspacher

Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.

Dependence | Man | Marriage | Obligation | Woman |

Tom Butler-Bowdon

To lead, you have to make a declaration of independence against the estimation of others, the culture, the age. You have to decide to live in the world, but outside existing conceptions of it. Leaders do not merely do well by the terms of their culture they create new contexts, new things, new ways of doing and being.

Age | Culture | Estimation | World |

Amilcar Cabral

Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into real improvement of living conditions.

Better | Children | Fighting | Future | Ideas | Improvement | Men | Order | Peace | People | Progress | Struggle | Words |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The solution of mankind’s most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it.

Civilization | Mankind | Will |

Jacques Maritain

Our whole being subsists in virtue of the subsistence of the spiritual soul which is in us a principle of creative unity, independence and liberty.

Liberty | Soul | Unity | Virtue | Virtue |

Ignatius Loyola, aka Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Let each one remember that he will make progress in all spiritual things only insofar as he rids himself of self-love, self-will and self-interest.

Love | Progress | Self | Self-interest | Self-love | Will |

Roger L. Shinn, fully Roger Lincoln Shinn

Christian freedom is neither the lonely rebellion of an atheistic existentialist nor the self-will of the rugged individualist. It is freedom-in-community.

Freedom | Rebellion | Self | Will |