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

Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg

The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.

Chance | Force | Research |

Wendell Phillips

No matter whose lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can’t stand discussion, let it crack.

Danger | Liberty | People | Danger |

Wendell Phillips

The old Hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. - First, men were in chains that went back to an iron hand - then he saw them led by threads from the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. The first was despotism, iron, and ruling by force. - The last was civilization, ruling by ideas.

Agitation | Enemy | Liberty | Office | People | Power |

Wendell Phillips

Every man meets his Waterloo at last.

Agitation | Enemy | Liberty | Office | People | Power | Price | Vigilance |

Werner Heisenberg, fully Werner Karl Heisenberg

This has also appeared in the alternate form: What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Consequences | Knowledge | Nothing | System | Theoretical |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

The American child is a highly intelligent human being — characteristically sensitive, humorous, open-minded, eager to learn, and has a strong sense of excitement, energy, and healthy curiosity about the world in which he lives. Lucky indeed is the grown-up who manages to carry these same characteristics into adult life. It usually makes for a happy and successful individual.

Children | People | Play | Temper | Trouble |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The world knows the perfect tune for harmony and peace among people. There is no secret about it. It is as old as the ages. Seers, prophets and sages have extolled it. The perfect tune is the expression of love and good will. All that is needed is that people transcend their differences so that the perfect tune may be played on the heartstrings of all people everywhere.

Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Philosophy | Wise |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Candor | Curiosity | Elegance | Freedom | Good | Novelty | Resentment | Self-esteem | Soul | Speech | Sympathy | Temper | Tenderness | Novelty |

Walter Lippmann

Genius sees the dynamic purpose first, finds reasons afterword.

Destroy | Liberty | Majority | Man | Men | Order | Property | Right | Rights |

Walter Lippmann

The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.

Power |

Walter Gropius, fully Walter Adolph Georg Gropius

Since art is dead in the actual life of civilized nations, it has been relegated to these grotesque morgues, museums.

Design |

Walter Lippmann

The principles of the good society call for a concern with an order of being -- which cannot be proved existentially to the sense organs -- where it matters supremely that the human person is inviolable, that reason shall regulate the will, that truth shall prevail over error.

Democracy | Force | Majority | Rule | Sacred | War | Trouble |

Walter Lippmann

Advertising, in fact, is the effort of business men to take charge of consumption as well as production. They are not content to supply a demand, as the text-books say; they educate the demand as well. In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it would like. A bewildered child in a toy shop is nothing to the ultimate consumer in the world market of today. To say, then, that advertising is merely a way of calling attention to useful goods is a gorgeous piece of idealization. Advertising is in fact the weed that has grown up because the art of consumption is uncultivated.

Business | Control | Liberty | Men | Business | Learn |

Walter Lippmann

Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be President.

Force | Majority | Rule | War |

Walter Pater, fully Walter Horatio Pater

And the fifteenth century was an impassioned age, so ardent and serious in its pursuit of art that it consecrated everything with which art had to ad as a religious object.

Consciousness | Important | Sense | Temper |

Warren Buffett, fully Warren Edward Buffett, aka Oracle of Omaha

When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.

Washington Irving

The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.

Order | Serenity | Spirit | Temper | Worship |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

The purpose of dancing isn't to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing and of life is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where you are when the music ends.

Children |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

The world is in you, and if you can work your mind in a genuinely magical sense, you can strongly affect the aging process of the cells composed of indestructible DNA.

Power | Relationship | Spirit |

Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer

Spend some time observing babies and vow to emulate their joy.

Folly | Life | Life | Mind | Plan | Struggle | Thought | Will | Worry | Thought |