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

William Shakespeare

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream—for in that sleep of death what dreams may come,when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause, there's the respect, that makes calamity of so long life. Hamlet, Act iii, Scene 1

Earth | World |

William James

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young, -- or slender!

Earth | Man | Reason | Old |

William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

Paradoxically, as the mind becomes simpler, it can perceive greater complexity.

Earth | Man | Nothing |

William Gurnall

And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn.

Earth | Hell |

William Morris

Alas, alas! another day gone by, another day and no soul come, she said; Another year, and still I am not dead!" And with that word once more her head she raised, and on the trembling man with great eyes gazed.

Earth |

William James

The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds

Darkness | Dignity | Earth | God | Heaven | God |

William Law

The one supreme, unchangeable rule of love, which is a law to all intelligent beings of all worlds and will be a law to all eternity, is this, viz., that God alone is to be loved for Himself, and all other beings only in Him and for Him. Whatever intelligent creature lives not under this rule of love is so far fallen from the order of his creation, and is, till he returns to this eternal law of love, an apostate from God and incapable of the kingdom of Heaven. Now, if God is alone to be loved for Himself, then no creature is to be loved for itself; and so all self-love in every creature is absolutely condemned. And if all created beings are only to be loved in and for God, then my neighbor is to be loved as I love myself, and I am only to love myself as I love my neighbor or any other created being that is, only in and for God.

Earth | Heaven | Men | Obedience |

William Morris

Architecture would lead us to all the arts, as it did with earlier mean: but if we despise it and take no note of how we are housed, the other arts will have a hard time of it indeed.

Death | Earth | Life | Life | Mirth | Pain | Past | Pleasure | Praise | Will |

William Morris

One was there who left all his friends behind; who going inland ever more and more, and being left quite alone, at last did find a lonely valley sheltered from the wind, wherein, amidst an ancient cypress wood, a long-deserted ruined castle stood.

Attention | Cause | Danger | Earth | Man | Men | Peace | Society | War | Society | Danger |

William Morris

Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, and how that his fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun, till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself.

Deeds | Earth | Life | Life | Deeds |

William Morris

One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ten men sharing an idea begin to act, a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad, and the cause has victories tangible and real and why only a hundred thousand Why not a hundred million and peace upon the earth You and I who agree together, it is we who have to answer that question.

Earth | Glory | Men | Story |

William Morris

Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing! For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live the dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing, the dreams of the night with the kisses they give, the dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive.

Deeds | Earth | Love | Pain | Sound | World | Deeds |

William Morris

From out the throng and stress of lies, from out the painful noise of sighs, one voice of comfort seems to rise: "It is the meaner part that dies."

Earth | Heaven | Life | Life | Reward | World |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

There was one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole.

Earth | Feelings | Imagination | People | Thinking | Thought | Parent | Thought |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

The truth of the matter is, that most English people don't know how to make tea anymore either, and most people drink cheap instant coffee instead, which is a pity, and gives Americans the impression that the English are just generally clueless about hot stimulants.

Earth | Land | Rest | Worth | Trouble |

Douglas William Jerrold

In all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest of the plums.

Earth |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.

Display | Earth | Light | Plenty | Time |

William Shakespeare

O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?

Earth |

William Shakespeare

O, but they say the tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony. Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, for they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. He that no more must say is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose. More are men's ends marked than their lives before. The setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is… Richard II, Act ii, Scene 1

Earth |

William Shakespeare

Nought's had, all's spent, where our desire is got without content.

Earth | Good |