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

Upanishads or The Upanishads NULL

You could have golden treasure buried beneath your feet, and walk over it again and again, yet never find it because you don't realize it's there. Just so, all beings live every moment in the city of the Divine, but never find the Divine because it is hidden by the veil of illusion. - Chandogya Upanishad.

Desire | Will |

Václav Havel

I believe that during the intervention of NATO in Kosovo there is an element nobody can question: the air attacks, the bombs, are not caused by a material interest. Their character is exclusively humanitarian: What is at stake here are the principles, human rights which have priority above state sovereignty. This makes it legitimate to attack the Yugoslav Federation, although without the United Nations mandate.

Desire | Education | Focus | Future | Will |

Václav Havel

Life cannot be destroyed for good, neither... can history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy lid of inertia and pseudo-events, slowly and inconspicuously undercutting it. It may be a long process, but one day it must happen: the lid will no longer hold and will start to crack. This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique ... something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.

Desire | Need | Politics | Teach | Happiness |

Václav Havel

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

Desire | Dignity | Nothing | Office | Power | Truth |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

It is untrue to say a man has made his fortune when he is not capable of enjoying it.

Advice | Deference | Desire | Men |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

Desire | Men | Pity | Talent |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

If you wish others to know about your good deeds, they are not truly good deeds.

Desire | Following |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

Buddha is one who possesses great wisdom. We, on the other hand, possess great stupidity. Therefore, we should study the Buddha. We should study the great wisdom of the Buddha. We should take the mind of the Buddha as our own mind. We should take the vows of the Buddha as our own vows. In every moment we should be studying and practicing the four immeasurable minds of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and even-mindedness. In every moment we should be cultivating the Dharma gateway of "being able to endure that which is difficult to endure and being able to practice that which is difficult to practice."

Desire | Fame |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

All the extraordinary men I have known were extraordinary in their own estimation.

Desire | Era |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Business | Desire | Giving | People | World | Business |

Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly

But self-renunciation means God-possession, the being possessed by God. Out of utter humility and self-forgetfulness comes the thunder of the prophets, "Thus saith the Lord." High station and low are leveled before Him. Be not fooled by the world's power. Imposing institutions of war and imperialism and greed are wholly vulnerable for they, and we, are forever in the hands of a conquering God. These are not cheap and hasty words. The high and noble adventures of faith can in our truest moments be seen as no adventures at all, but certainties. And if we live in complete humility in God we can smile in patient assurance as we work. Will you be wise enough and humble enough to be little fools of God? For who can finally stay His power? Who can resist His persuading love? Truly says Saint Augustine, "There is something in humility which raiseth the heart upward."

Business | Competition | Desire | Discernment | God | Growth | Habit | Humility | Important | Life | Life | Little | Looks | Meekness | Money | Nothing | Obedience | Poverty | Pride | Self | Soul | Superiority | Trifles | Will | Business | God |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

Compensation | Desire | Ends | Faith | Freedom | Nations | Peace | Rights | Safe | World |

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape.

Consequences | Desire | Dread | Liberty | Mind |

Thorstein Veblen, fully Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen

No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.

Desire | People |

Thucydides NULL

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

Absence | Aid | Desire | History | Knowledge | Past | Romance | Understanding |

Thucydides NULL

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.

Absence | Accuracy | Aid | Coincidence | Cost | Desire | History | Knowledge | Labor | Partiality | Past | Romance | Trust |

Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it?

Desire | Fulfillment |

Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

If God had a bumper sticker, it would probably read: SHINE, DON'T WHINE.

Desire |

William Shakespeare

An outward honor for an inward toil.

Desire | God | God | Old |

William Shakespeare

AMIENS: What's that 'ducdame'? JAQUES: 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle.

Desire |