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

Václav Havel

I know we have still done very little, and that the main tasks still lie ahead of us. I would say that we have just completed a year of preparation in which the conditions for a new environment have been created.

Good | Will | World |

Vannevar Bush

Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.

Reading | Research | Time | World | Writing | Old |

Václav Havel

The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.

Doubt | Integration | Man | Nature | Reality | Relationship | Science | World |

Václav Havel

You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.

Authority | Awareness | Capacity | Earth | Honor | Hope | Nothing | Order | People | Respect | Right | Rights | Will | World | Respect | Awareness | Value |

Václav Havel

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed.

Better | Change | World |

Václav Havel

Just as many showed their solidarity with us when we were striving for freedom, so now we must show solidarity to those who are only striving for it in uneasy conditions.

Better | Existence | Language | World | Think |

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 |

Václav Havel

The history of the human race has generated several papers articulating basic moral imperatives, or fundamental principles, of human coexistence that — maybe in association with concurring historical events — substantially influenced the fate of humanity on this planet. Among these historic documents, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — adopted fifty years ago today — holds a very special, indeed, unique position. It is the first code of ethical conduct that was not a product of one culture or one sphere of civilization only, but a universal creation, shaped and subscribed to by representatives of all humankind. Since its very inception, the Declaration has thus represented a planetary or global commitment, a global intention, a global guideline. For this reason alone, this exceptional document — conceived as a result of a profound human self-reflection in the wake of the horrors of World War II, and retaining its relevance ever since — deserves to be remembered today.

Power | World |

Václav Havel

The relationship to the world that the modern science fostered and shaped now appears to have exhausted its potential. It is increasingly clear that, strangely, the relationship is missing something. It fails to connect with the most intrinsic nature of reality and with natural human experience. It is now more of a source of disintegration and doubt than a source of integration and meaning. It produces what amounts to a state of schizophrenia: Man as an observer is becoming completely alienated from himself as a being.

Culture | Happy | People | Revolution | Society | Strength | Trust | Wonder | World | Society |

Vannevar Bush

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses— the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that someday the path may be established more directly?

Conservation | Defense | Knowledge | Learning | Leisure | Man | Means | Objectives | Position | Science | Will | World | Leadership |

Václav Havel

Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by TV, radio and newspaper commentators.

Little | World |

Vance Havner

We are suffering today from a species of Christianity as dry as dust, as cold as ice, as pale as a corpse, and as dead as King Tut. We are suffering not from a lack of correct heads but of consumed hearts.

Conformity | Criticism | Spirit | World |

Václav Havel

The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet, I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of a departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world.

Body | Hope | World |

Valmiki NULL

Wealth springs from dharma, from dharma comes happiness and one gets everything from dharma. Dharma is the essence of this world. Dharma, which is the source of all happiness, can be attained even by a skilled person, only after observing various disciplines for his own purification and after great effort subjecting himself to great strain and stress. One cannot attain such dharma by leading a life given to the pleasures of the senses.

World |

Vannevar Bush

Moreover, they will be far more versatile than present commercial machines, so that they may readily be adapted for a wide variety of operations. They will be controlled by a control card or film, they will select their own data and manipulate it in accordance with the instructions thus inserted, they will perform complex arithmetical computations at exceedingly high speeds, and they will record results in such form as to be readily available for distribution or for later further manipulation.

World |

Václav Havel

Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.

Responsibility | World |

Václav Havel

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

Absurd | Better | Change | Danger | Global | Nothing | Revolution | War | Weapons | Will | World | Danger |

Valmiki NULL

Grief destroys one’s courage. It destroys one’s learning. It destroys one’s everything. There is no enemy greater than grief.

Nothing | Strength | World |

Václav Havel

When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things.

Awareness | Earth | Hypothesis | Understanding | World | Awareness |

Vannevar Bush

Adding a column of figures is a repetitive thought process, and it was long ago properly relegated to the machine. True, the machine is sometimes controlled by the keyboard, and thought of a sort enters in reading the figures and poking the corresponding keys, but even this is avoidable.

Age | World |