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

Thomas Jefferson

A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sin and suffering.

Democracy | Mob | Nothing | People | Rights |

Walter Bagehot

The beginning of civilization is marked by an intense legality; that legality is the very condition of its existence, the bond which ties it together; but that legality - that tendency to impose a settled customary yoke upon all men and all actions -

Mob | Reason |

W. E. B. Du Bois, fully William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Then, as the storm burst round him, he rose slowly to his feet and turned his closed eyes toward the Sea. And the world whistled in his ears.

Mob | Wants | Woman | World |

Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that offensive is frequently but a synonym for unusual; and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.

Evolution | Little | Man | Mob | Sacred | Space | Time |

Elihu Root

Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.

Effort | Men | Mob | Occupation | Organization | Past | Power | Principles | Purpose | Purpose | Success | Work |