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

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Behavior | Freedom | Life | Life | Martyrs | Mind | Suffering | Witness | Words |

Václav Havel

When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.

Behavior | Citizenship | Will |

Hung Tzu-ch'eng, also Hong Zicheng or Hóng Zìchéng, born Hong Yingming

The universe seems silent and unmoving, yet its natural functions never cease. The sun and moon hurry along day and night, yet their brightness never diminishes. By the same token, the noble person is alert while at leisure, and makes time for tasteful pursuits when busy with duties.

Anger | Behavior |

Turkish Proverbs

What a man is at the age of seven is also what he is at seventy.

Behavior | Man |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

That is why I introduced the idea that the world has gone from round to flat. Everywhere you turn, hierarchies are being challenged from below or transforming themselves from top-down structure into more horizontal and collaborative ones.

Behavior |

Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz

“To believe your own thought,” observed Emerson, “to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – that is genius.” But to impose what you believe is true for you upon all men, indeed upon a single individual – that is despotism.

Behavior | Discipline | Enough | Parents | Respect | Respect | Child |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

While sitting in my prison cell, I was astonished to hear the local rock station play a new song by the Beatles entitled "Come Together." Although the new version was certainly a musical and lyrical improvement on my campaign song, I was a bit miffed that Lennon had passed me over this way. (I must explain that even the most good-natured persons tend to be a bit touchy about social neglect while in prison). When I sent a mild protest to John, he replied with typical Lennon charm and wit: that he was a tailor and I was a customer who had ordered a suit and never returned. So he sold it to someone else.

Age | Behavior | Consciousness | Time |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

Monotheism is the primitive religion which centers human consciousness on Hive Authority. There is One God and His Name is _______ (substitute Hive-Label). If there is only One God then there is no choice, no option, no selection of reality. There is only Submission or Heresy. The word Islam means "submission". The basic posture of Christianity is kneeling. Thy will be done.

Behavior | People |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

Drugs Are the Religion of the People - The Only Hope is Dope

Behavior |

William James

Few of us are not in some way infirm, or even diseased; and our very infirmities help us unexpectedly.

Behavior | Determination | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Rule | Will |

William James

Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.

Behavior | Conduct | Organization |

William Law

There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.

Behavior | Death | Nature | Nothing | Perfection | Safe |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.

Behavior |

Prince Shōtoku, born Shotoku Taishi, aka Prince Umayado or Prince Kamitsumiya

The three treasures, which are Buddha, the (Buddhist) Law and the (Buddhist) Priesthood; should be given sincere reverence, for they are the final refuge of all living things. Few men are so bad that they cannot be taught their truth.

Behavior | Good | Government | Lord | People | Rank | Will | Government |

William Shakespeare

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty, beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e'er loved, or father found, a love that makes breath poor and speech unable.

Behavior | Cause | Children | Contempt | Counsel | Desire | Duty | Father | Fear | Friend | Good | Grace | Heaven | Honor | Love | Marriage | Mind | Obedience | Pity | Pleasure | Right | Sacred | Time | Wife | Will | Wise | Wit | Woman | Friendship | Counsel | Friends |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I became one of those annoying people who always say Ciao! Only I was extra annoying, since I would always explain where the word ciao comes from. (If you must know, it's an abbreviation of a phrase used by medieval Venetians as an intimate salutation: Sono il suo schiavo! Meaning: I am your slave!) Just speaking these words made me feel sexy and happy. My divorce lawyer told me not to worry; she said she had one client (Korean by heritage) who, after a yucky divorce, legally changed her name to something Italian, just to feel sexy and happy again.

Balance | Behavior | Consequences | Depression | Ends | Family | Grief | Need | Panic | People | Will |

Emma Goldman

I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.

Behavior | Dreams | Little | Time | World |

Evgeny Morozov

Creative experimentation propels our culture forward. That our stories of innovation tend to glorify the breakthroughs and edit out all the experimental mistakes doesn't mean that mistakes play a trivial role. As any artist or scientist knows, without some protected, even sacred space for mistakes, innovation would cease. With "smart" technology in the ascendant, it will be hard to resist the allure of a frictionless, problem-free future. When Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, says that "people will spend less time trying to get technology to work…because it will just be seamless," he is not wrong: This is the future we're headed toward. But not all of us will want to go there. A more humane smart-design paradigm would happily acknowledge that the task of technology is not to liberate us from problem-solving. Rather, we need to enroll smart technology in helping us with problem-solving. What we want is not a life where friction and frustrations have been carefully designed out, but a life where we can overcome the frictions and frustrations that stand in our way. Truly smart technologies will remind us that we are not mere automatons who assist big data in asking and answering questions. Unless designers of smart technologies take stock of the complexity and richness of the lived human experience—with its gaps, challenges and conflicts—their inventions will be destined for the SmartBin of history.

Achievement | Balance | Behavior | Better | Failure | People | Regret | Right | Shame | Space | Failure | Trial | Happiness |

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another's company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.

Behavior | Day | Determination | Enough | Good | Kill | Man | Nothing | Sorrow | Understand |