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

Hannah Arendt

Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining whatever happens to come to pass or to attract attention, regardless of results and specific content, could this activity he among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing?

Nature |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

Men |

Hans Reichenbach

The famous assertion by Einstein that the length of a rod depends on its velocity and on the chosen definition of simultaneity. ...is based on the fact that we do not measure the length of the rod, but its projection on a system at rest. How the length of the projection depends on the choice of simultaneity can be illustrated by reference to a photograph taken through a focal-plane shutter. Such a shutter... consists of a wide band with a horizontal slit, which slides down vertically. Different bands are photographed successively on the film. Moving objects are therefore strangely distorted; the wheels of a rapidly moving car for instance, appear to be slanted. The shape of the objects in the picture will evidently depend on the speed of the shutter. Similarly, the length of the moving segment depends on the definition of simultaneity. One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.

Men |

Italian Proverbs

Of this world each man has as much as he takes.

Life | Life | Men |

Italian Proverbs

No sooner is the law made than its evasion is discovered.

Evil | Men |

Italian Proverbs

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.

Experience | Nature | Organization |

Italian Proverbs

One is never too old to yearn.

Hate | Love | Philosophy | Reform | Will |

Italian Proverbs

The first blow is as good as two.

Courage | Mankind | Men | Peace | Strength | Tears | Will |

Italian Proverbs

Who is in fear of every leaf must not go into the wood.

Men | Pain | Will |

Italian Proverbs

Who has no money must have no wishes.

Men | Worry |

Italian Proverbs

The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending.

Ability | Adventure | Character | Comfort | Convictions | Daring | Ideas | Injustice | Injustice | Love | Man | Men | Qualities | Sound | Suffering | Talking | Time | Universe | Will | Witness | Blessed | Old | Winning |

Italian Proverbs

Who has patience sees his revenge.

Enough | Nature |

Italian Proverbs

What shall I say when it is better to say nothing?

Body | Men | Mind | Reason |

Italian Proverbs

The woman who gives is seldom good; the woman who accepts is in the power of the giver.

Men |

Italian Proverbs

Think much, speak little and write less.

Reform | World |

Italian Proverbs

Who is in the right fears, who is in the wrong hopes.

Men |

Italian Proverbs

The right hand is slave to the left.

Business | Nature | Worth | Business |

J. R. R. Tolkien, fully John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.

Abuse | Experience | Life | Life | Little | Means | Men | Problems | Suicide | Trust | Work | World | Learn |

Italian Proverbs

Who troubles others has no rest himself.

Belief | Compassion | Desire | God | Human race | Love | Means | Race | Will | God |