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

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

To live for hundred years it is important that the body is healthy, devoid of weakness and ailments.

Death | Evil |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Verily, every creature lives there, the cow, the horse, and man, where this charm is performed, as the (protecting) barrier for life.

Evil | God | Will | God |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

We should acquire power and strength so that we could vanquish our enemies and enjoy a long life full of happiness and prosperity and face death without fear.

Anger | Evil |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

You people are unconscious; you should be afraid of sin.

Envy | Evil | Heart | Rest |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

Hatred and anger leads to unhappiness, pain and misery. So, one should always be soft-spoken and all 'karma-yogis' should tread on the path of righteousness.

Evil | Work |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

We have all around us, in the atmosphere, the music emanating from all the Broadcasting Stations of the World, but they do not assail your ear at any time. You are not aware of any Station; but, if you have a receiver and if you tune it to the correct wavelength, you can hear the matter broadcast from any Station; if you fail to tune it correctly, you will get instead of news only nuisance.

Evil | Happy | Nature | Pain | Wrong |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Thy mind shall not go thither, shall not disappear. Do not become heedless of the living, do not follow the Fathers. All the gods shall preserve thee here.

Evil | Good | Men | People |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

Do not tremble in fear but become strong and courageous instead.

Contemplation | Evil | Knowledge | Wisdom | Contemplation |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

It might seem strange that on an island fifty miles wide, in a village under cliffs that stare out forever on the sea, a child may grow to manhood never having stepped in a boat or dipped his finger in salt water, but so it is.

Evil |

Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

The remedy for the Great Depression is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others… the American way.

Despise | Good | Meaning | Pious | Question | Sense | Society | Wealth | Will | Society | Old | Understand |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

But you're not a traitor, you've merely been the tool of one. I don't punish tools. They do harm only in the hands of a bad workman.

Balance | Change | Evil | Good | Power | Will | World |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

The unknown, said Faxe's soft voice in the forest, the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. No Handdara, no Yomesh, no hearthgods, nothing. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion. ... Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, unpredictable, inevitable -- the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?

Evil | Pain | Treason | Trouble | Happiness |

Valmiki NULL

One who is bent on courting his death will not take kindly to sage counsel given by his well-wishers

Distinguish | Man | Meaning | Nothing |

Václav Havel

Poles are able to reflect their history, they respect it. Who knows if anybody will remember when we commemorate our 25 years [since the 1989 Velvet Revolution].

Authority | History | Meaning | Space | Time | World | Value |

Valmiki NULL

Enthusiasm has great strength. There is no greater strength than enthusiasm. There is nothing which is not attainable in this world for the enthusiastic.

Meaning | People | Society | Society |

Václav Havel

That is very dangerous... in an absolutely legal way and in accordance with the wording of the law, but against the spirit of the ... constitution.

Meaning | Wonder |

Václav Havel

In late 1989, the profound transformation that took place in this country brought me here to Prague Castle. It all happened so suddenly that I did not even have time to properly consider whether or not I was up to the task, and I was sincerely of the opinion that I would just take it on for a few months until the first free elections.

Ideals | Meaning |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism.

Children | Despair | Evil | Happy | Pain | People | Praise | Treason | Trouble | Happiness |

Václav Havel

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

Ability | Absurd | Awareness | Courage | Good | Gratitude | Irony | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility | Sense | Vigilance | Awareness |

Václav Havel

At one time, the state of culture in Czechoslovakia was described, rather poignantly, as a 'Biafra of the spirit'. . . I simply do not believe that we have all lain down and died. I see far more than graves and tombstones around me. I see evidence of this in . . . expensive books on astronomy printed in a hundred thousand copies (they would hardly find that many readers in the USA).

Control | Man | Meaning | World |