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

Henry Giles

It is by faith that poetry, as well as devotion, soars above this dull earth; that imagination breaks through its clouds, breathes a purer air, and lives in a softer light.

Devotion | Earth | Faith | Imagination | Light | Poetry | Wisdom |

Betty Friedan

American housewives have not had their brains shot away, nor are they schizophrenic in the clinical sense. But if... the fundamental human drive is not the urge for pleasure or the satisfaction of biological needs, but the need to grow and realize one’s full potential, their comfortable, empty, purposeless days are indeed cause for a nameless terror.

Cause | Need | Pleasure | Sense | Terror | Wisdom |

Carl Frederick

Knowing where you are going is all you need to get there.

Knowing | Need | Wisdom |

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a.k.a. Charlotte Anna (nee Perkins), Charlotte Perkins Stetson

To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something.

Need | Wisdom | World | Happiness |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

An unrestricted satisfaction of every need presents itself as the most enticing method of conducting one's life, but it means putting enjoyment before caution, and soon brings its own punishment.

Caution | Enjoyment | Life | Life | Means | Method | Need | Punishment | Wisdom |

Gail Hamilton, Pseud. of Mary A. Dodge

Men as yet need some help to their imagination. There remains still room for a little illusion. It is better for men, it is better for women, that each somewhat idealize the other. Much is lost when life has lost its atmosphere, and is reduced to naked fact.

Better | Illusion | Imagination | Life | Life | Little | Men | Need | Wisdom |

Heinrich Heine

The essence of music is revelation... There is something marvelous in music. I might almost say it is, in itself, a marvel. Its position is somewhere between the region of thought and that of a phenomena; a glimmering medium between mind and matter, related to both and yet differing from either. Spiritual, and yet requiring rhythm; material, and yet independent of space... It is spirit, yet in need of time, rhythm; it is matter, yet independent of space.

Mind | Music | Need | Phenomena | Position | Revelation | Space | Spirit | Thought | Time | Wisdom | Thought |

Frederick Henry Hedge

What we need most is not so much the ideal as to idealize the real.

Need | Wisdom |

Charles Hanford Henderson

The busy world sometimes forgets that we need sympathy in our happiness as well as in our sorrow.

Need | Sorrow | Sympathy | Wisdom | World | Happiness |

Soma Golden, fully Soma Golden Behr

Abortion almost always symbolizes failure - the failure of a contraceptive, of a relationship, of a family, of a dream, even of a social system. Government need not add an extra lash to the whip.

Failure | Family | Government | Need | Relationship | System | Wisdom | Government | Failure |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Unlike grownups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

Children | Little | Need | Wisdom |

Henry H. Haskins

He who loses money losses much. He who loses a friend loses more. But he who loses faith loses all.

Faith | Friend | Money | Wisdom |

Ellen Goodman

The figures prove that the absolute easiest way to be poor is to be born out of wedlock to a young woman. If you need a statistic to memorize, try this one: 92.8 percent of all children in black, single female-headed families where the mother is under thirty and did not complete high school, are in poverty.

Absolute | Children | Mother | Need | Poverty | Wisdom | Woman |

Henry H. Haskins

Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. His mind was created for his own thoughts, not yours or mine.

Faith | Man | Mind | Wisdom |

Thomas Guthrie

Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give.

Commerce | Earth | Faith | Happy | Man | Peace | Prosperity | Security | Society | Wisdom | Society | Commerce |

William Gurnall

No man prays in faith who thinks he knows better than God; or who, not knowing, wishes that his ignorance may overrule God's wisdom.

Better | Faith | God | Ignorance | Knowing | Man | Wisdom | Wishes |

Benjamin R. Haydon

It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also His infinite justice.

God | Justice | Mercy | Need | Wisdom | God |

Lawrence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester

It is undeniable that a man needs to be provided with some sort of philosophical background for his existence. And still more... does he need to be provided with a proper system of transcendental cosmology. But it remains true that the primary concern of the seeker after spiritual fulfillment is not with philosophy, but with wisdom.

Existence | Fulfillment | Man | Need | Philosophy | System | Wisdom |