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

Samuel Clarke

There was plainly wanting a divine revelation to recover mankind out of their universal corruption and degeneracy.

Corruption | Degeneracy | Mankind | Revelation | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The discovery of nuclear reactions need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than the discovery of matches.

Discovery | Mankind | Need | Wisdom | Discovery |

Freeman John Dyson

There are three reasons why, quite apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first reason is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second reason is to escape material impoverishment; the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forgo forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third reason is our spiritual need for an open frontier. The ultimate purpose of space travel is to bring to humanity, not only scientific discoveries and an occasional spectacular show on television, but a real expansion of our spirit.

Abundance | Earth | Energy | Humanity | Mankind | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Space | Spirit | Television | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men, shall we be able to speak of mankind as civilized.

Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Obligation | Wisdom |

Henry Havelock Ellis

We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide.

Mankind | Suicide | Wisdom |

Euripedes NULL

Here all mankind is equal: rich and poor alike, they love their children.

Children | Love | Mankind | Wisdom |

William Maxwell Evarts

Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of ascent, was adjustable on principles of the common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

Authority | Capacity | Civilization | Culture | Government | Man | Mankind | Morality | People | Principles | Progress | Reason | Redemption | Security | Society | Title | Wisdom |

Henry Fielding

Let no man be sorry he has done good because others have done evil. If a man has acted right, he has done well, though alone; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

Evil | Good | Justify | Man | Mankind | Right | Will | Wisdom | Wrong |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure.

Absurd | Good | Influence | Insult | Mankind | Nothing | Pleasure | Wisdom | Wishes | Insult |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We would know mankind better if we were not so anxious to resemble one another.

Better | Mankind | Wisdom |

R. Hertz, fully Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz

The Kaddish is not a prayer for the dead, but a mandate for the living... It bids man rise above his sorrow... and fixes his view upon the welfare of mankind. It lifts his hope and vision to a day... when mankind shall at last inhabit the earth as children of the one God and Father, and justice reign supreme in peace.

Children | Day | Earth | Father | God | Hope | Justice | Man | Mankind | Peace | Prayer | Sorrow | Vision | Wisdom | God |

Jamake Highwater

Art is a staple of mankind - never a by-product of elitism. So urgent, so utterly linked with the pulse of feeling that it becomes the singular sing of life when every other aspect of civilization fails... Like hunger and sex, it is a disposition of the human cell - a marvelous fiction of the brain which recreates itself as something as mysterious as mind. Art is consistent with every aspect of every day in the life of every people.

Art | Civilization | Day | Hunger | Life | Life | Mankind | Mind | People | Wisdom | Art |

Robert Howard, fully Sir Robert Howard

All mankind is one of these two cowards - either to wish to die when he should live, or live when he should die.

Mankind | Wisdom |

David Hume

A philosopher, who purposes only to represent the common sense of mankind in more beautiful and more engaging colors, if by accident he falls into error, goes not farther; but renewing his appeal to common sense, and the natural sentiments of the; mind, returns into the right path, and secures himself from any dangerous illusions.

Accident | Common Sense | Error | Mankind | Mind | Right | Sense | Wisdom |

George Stillman Hillard

The instinctive and universal taste of mankind selects flowers for the expression of its finest sympathies, their beauty and their fleetingness serving to make them the most fitting symbols of those delicate sentiments for which language itself seems almost too gross a medium.

Beauty | Language | Mankind | Taste | Wisdom | Beauty |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Divisive forces are more powerful than those which make for union. Vested interests in language, philosophies of life, table manners, sexual habits, political, ecclesiastical and economic organizations are sufficiently powerful to block all attempts, by rational methods, to unite mankind for its own good. And there is nationalism. With the 57 varieties of tribal gods, nationalism is the religion of the 20th century. We may be Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians or Atheists; but the fact remains that there is only one faith for which large masses of us are prepared to die and kill, and that faith is nationalism.

Faith | Good | Kill | Language | Life | Life | Mankind | Manners | Religion | Wisdom |

William Ralph Inge

The nations which have put mankind most in their debt have been small states - Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.

Debt | Mankind | Nations | Wisdom |