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

Dugald Stewart

The word will, however, is not always used in this its proper acceptation, but is frequently substituted for volition, as when I say that my hand moves in obedience to my will.

Mind |

William Shakespeare

O, men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming, by thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought put on for villainy, not born where't grows, but worn a bait for ladies.

Age | Habit | Love |

William Shakespeare

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell That he hath turned a heaven unto a hell!

Dreams | Good | Little | Mind | Misfortune | Prayer | Time | Misfortune | Old |

William Shakespeare

Oft my jealousy shapes faults that are not.

Grief | Mind |

William Shakespeare

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could force his soul so to his own conceit that from her working all his visage wanned, tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, a broken voice, and his whole function suiting with forms to his conceit? And all for nothing, for Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would he do had he the motive and the cue for passion that I have? He would drown the stage with tears and cleave the general ear with horrid speech, make mad the guilty and appal the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed the very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak like john-a-dreams, unpregnant for my cause, and can say nothing. No, not for a king, upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' the throat as deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha, 'swounds, I should take it, for it cannot be but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall to make oppression bitter, or ere this I should ha' fatted all the region kites with this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am i! This is most brave, that i, the son of a dear father murdered, prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must like a whore unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a stallion! Fie upon't, foh! About, my brains. Hum -- I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the soul that presently they have proclaimed their malefactions. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ. I'll have these players play something like the murder of my father before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks. I'll tent him to the quick. If 'a do blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be a devil, and the devil hath power t' assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps out of my weakness and my melancholy, as he is very potent with such spirits, abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds more relative than this. The play's the thing wherein i'll catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2

Mind |

William Shakespeare

Our rash faults Make trivial price of serious thing we have, Not knowing them until we know their grave. All's Well That Ends Well (King of France at V, iii)

Body | Honor | Mind |

William Shakespeare

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year. The Merry Wives of Windsor (Anne Page at III, iv)

Conscience | Cunning | Defeat | Devil | Father | Force | Gall | Heart | Heaven | Life | Life | Murder | Oppression | Passion | Play | Power | Property | Revenge | Soul | Spirit | Tears | Weakness | Will | Words | Murder | Guilty |

Edwin Percy Whipple

In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites, and frowns with quite a conservative air on all new inventions, all untried experiments in iniquity.

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

Fortunate ones, mingle your mind with the Dharma and the happiness of Buddhahood will manifest within you!

Evil | Good | Mind | Wisdom |

Edwin Percy Whipple

Every style formed elaborately on any model must be affected and straight-laced.

Change | Mind | Study | Thought | Thought |

Edwin Percy Whipple

Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is an humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.

Enough | Genius | Men | Nations | Thought | Govern | Thought |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

If wives suppress not contempt for husbands, then it follows that such wives rebuke and scold their husbands. If husbands stop not short of anger, then they are certain to beat their wives. The correct relationship between husband and wife is based upon harmony and intimacy, and conjugal love is grounded in proper union. Should actual blows be dealt, how could matrimonial relationship be preserved? Should sharp words be spoken, how could conjugal love exist? If love and proper relationship both be destroyed, then husband and wife are divided.

Action | Discussion | Disrespect | Habit | Heart | Husband | Knowing | Language | Lust | Space | Wife | Will | Following |

Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

Life is full of uncertainties, perhanps one day some unforeseen circumstance would bring her into his life once more.

Choice | Mind | Qualities |

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

When asked about the importance of receiving teachings on dedication, Gape Lama answered, "Whatever Dharma practice we engage in, large or small, we must dedicate the merit. If we fail to dedicate, then whatever merit we have accumulated can be lost very easily in a moment of anger, or in giving rise to any afflictive emotion or action."

Awareness | Mind | Wisdom | Awareness |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

When private virtue is hazarded on the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.

Individuality | Mind |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Since intellect (buddhi), together with the other internal organs (ahankara and manas), ascertain all objects, these three instruments are the guardians and the rest are gates.

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

I am present in front of anyone who has faith in me, just as the moon casts its reflection, effortlessly, in any vessel filled with water.

Mind | Will | Happiness |

William Shakespeare

Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore should I repent me; but once put out thy light, thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat that can thy light relume. Othello, scene ii

Mind | Old |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Heart | Mind |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

And from this divergence it follows that the Self (purusha) is witness, solitary, neutral, spectator and non-agent.

Mind |