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

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

Words of encouragement fan the spark of genius into the flame of achievement.

Hope | Life | Life | Light | Meaning | Power |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

I wanted my wife to realize clearly one long-term penalty, for herself and for the children, of the step I was taking. I said: You know, we are leaving the winning world for the losing world.

Evil | Focus |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

Courage is the main quality of leadership, in my opinion, no matter where it is exercised. Usually it implies some risk — especially in new undertakings. Courage to initiate something and to keep it going, pioneering and adventurous spirit to blaze new ways, often, in our land of opportunity.

Evil | Good | Important | Life | Life | Teach | Child | Learn | Understand |

Wilhelm Reich

Every physician, shoemaker, mechanic or educator must know his shortcomings if he is to do his work and make his living. For some decades, you have begun to play a governing role on this earth. It is on your thinking and your actions that the future of humanity depends. But your teachers and masters do not tell you how you really think and are; nobody dares to voice the one criticism of you which could make you capable of governing your own fate. You are "free" only in one sense: free from education in governing your life yourself, free from self-criticism.

History | Meaning |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.

Awe | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Reverence | Woman |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

And then there is the thrill of creatively sowing ideas and inspiration into the minds of others. Often our contributions will actually change lives by sharing appreciation, courage, love, and joy. Carry the ideal of being a creative sower, that you are on the side of growth, plenty, peace, and progress. Make it a point to scatter creative seeds every day of your life!

Adventure | Art | Courage | Curiosity | Daring | Day | Dreams | Faith | Flexibility | Grave | Heart | Life | Life | Man | Men | Reading | Safe | Theories | Flexibility | Art | Stamina |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of “nothing attempted, nothing gained” and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.

Eternal | God | Hope | Life | Life | Light | Man | Meaning | Power | Will | God |

Wilhelm Reich

You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.

Evil | Little | Men | People | Power |

Wilhelm Reich

Saw a film on cancer yesterday, shown by the English delegation. No doubt about it. I'm right. Migratory cancer cells are amoebic formations. They are produced from disintegrating tissue and thus demonstrate the law of tension and charge in its purest form - as does the orgastic convulsion. Now money is a must - cancer the main issue - in every respect, even political. It was a staggering experience. My intuition is good. I depend on it. Was absolutely driven to buy a microscope. The sight of the cancer cells was exactly as I had previously imagined it, had almost physically felt it would be. Cancer is an autoinfection of the body, of an organ. And researchers have no idea of what, hor, or where!!

Anxiety | Anxiety | Existence | Experience | Fighting | Freedom | Guilt | Knowledge | Love | Meaning | Means | Money | Organization | People | Power | Precision | Self-determination | Sin | Weapons | Will | Precision | Old |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end. He popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner. Born of necessity, the little fellow literally freed us of immediate worry. He provided the means for expanding our organization to its present dimensions and for extending the medium of cartoon animation toward new entertainment levels. He spelled production liberation for us.

Evil | Good | Important | Teach | Child |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

You know what the problem with this case is? We're cast wrong. I look like a slob, so I should be the villain. [Alger] Hiss, the handsome man who knows all the society people, is the born hero. It's bad casting. If it was the other way around, nobody would pay any attention to the story; but because of the way we look, all of you people think he must be telling the truth. That's what has made him so valuable to the other side.

Better | Evil | Winning |

Wilhelm Reich

He had a great capacity to arouse irrational hatred obviously, and that’s because his ideas were radical in the most extreme sense of the word “radical.” His ideas have something to offend everybody, and he ended up becoming the only heretic in American history whose books were literally burned by the government.

Energy | Error | Existence | Meaning |

Walt Kelley, fully Walter Crawford "Walt" Kelly, Jr.

Now is the time for all good men to come to.

Meaning |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality. That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it! And all preparation is for it – and identity for it – and life and materials are all together for it.

Meaning |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.

Day | Earth | Good | Meaning | Learn |

Walter Brueggemann

After we have done our best work and vigorously pursued our most passionate modes of reading, the text—and the God featured in the text— remain inscrutable and undomesticated. Partly the reason for that inscrutability and lack of domestication is that the text in its final form is complex and pluralistic, hosting a variety of traditioning and interpreting voices that become normative traditions. More than that, however, the inscrutability and lack of domestication in the text are a consequences of the God attested in these pages who is Holy Other.

Meaning | Power | Reality | Society | System | Society |

Walter Hilton

For prayer is nothing less than an ascent to the heart of God and its withdrawal from all Earthly thoughts. Therefore prayer is compared with fire, which in its own nature always leaves the Earth and Leaps into the air.

Desire | Despise | Envy | Evil | Pleasure | Resentment | Will |

Walter Lippmann

In the blood of the martyrs to intolerance are the seeds of unbelief.

Evil | Good | Will |

Walter Bagehot

If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.

Action | Argument | Art | Benevolence | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Mankind | Melancholy | Men | People | Philanthropy | Question | War | Will | World | Art |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life.

Looks | Man | Meaning | Men | Study | Woman | Understand |