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

Edward de Bono

A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.

Memory |

Edward Gibbon

Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood.

Contention | Despair | Fear | Force | Future | History | Humanity | Love | Man | Mankind | Memory | Mind | Motives | Nature | Past | Peace | Pity | Power | Pride | Property | Silence | Society | Submission | Success | Society |

Edwin Markham

Commit the Golden Rule to memory - now commit it to life.

Golden Rule | Life | Life | Memory | Rule | Golden Rule |

Elbert Green Hubbard

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

Ability | Good | Greatness | Memory |

Francis Bacon

Imagination I understand to be the representation of an individual thought. Imagination is of three kinds: joined with belief of that which is to come; joined with memory of that which is past; and of things present.

Belief | Imagination | Individual | Memory | Past | Present | Thought | Understand |

George Berkeley, also Bishop Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne

It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways... But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or my self. By which words I do not denote any of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consist in being perceived.

Existence | Ideas | Imagination | Knowledge | Memory | Mind | Self | Soul | Spirit | Words |

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Literature is the memory of humanity.

Humanity | Literature | Memory |

John Henry Newman

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

Memory | Wisdom |

Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.

Memory | Tomorrow |

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

All hormonal function, including that of the immune system and even allergic responses, occur as a sophisticated memory system handled primarily by our emotional brain. Because learning and memory are emotional-cognitive functions, the neural pattern, imprint, or “structure of knowledge” (to use Piaget’s term) of specific learning events includes in its content the memory patterns of those emotional hormones prominent in the body at the time of that learning.

Body | Events | Knowledge | Learning | Memory | System | Time |

Louisa May Alcott

My parents never bound us to any church but taught us that the love of goodness was the love of God, the cheerful doing of duty made life happy, and that the love of one’s neighbor in its widest sense was the best help for oneself. Their lives showed us how lovely this simple faith was, how much honor, gratitude and affection it brought them, and what a sweet memory they left behind.

Church | Duty | Faith | God | Gratitude | Happy | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Parents | Sense |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The life given us by nature is short, but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.

Eternal | Life | Life | Memory | Nature |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

Life | Life | Memory |

Bessie Anderson Stanley, fully Elizabeth-Anne "Bessie" Anderson Stanley

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much: Who has gained the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children: Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task: Who has left the world better than he has found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul: Who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it: Who has looked for the best in others and given the best he had: Whose life was an inspiration: whose memory is a benediction.

Appreciation | Beauty | Better | Children | Earth | Inspiration | Life | Life | Little | Love | Memory | Men | Respect | Soul | Success | World | Appreciation | Respect | Beauty | Poem |

Ned Rorem

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, then leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A deceptive memory may be the key to their originality.

Memory | Originality |

Ned Rorem

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

Inspiration | Memory |

Plato NULL

Every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being; this was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive.

Influence | Man | Means | Memory | Nature | Soul | Time | World |