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 Daniel

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish, and restore the light, With dark forgetting of my cares return.

Adversity | Distress |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Prosperity's right hand is industry, and her left hand is frugality.

Adversity | Think |

Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

[Anselm’s Proof God exists] God exists in our understanding… This means that the concept of God resides as an idea in our minds… God is a possible being, and might exist in reality. He is possible because the concept of God does not bear internal contradictions… If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater… This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great)… Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing. Suppose (theoretically) that God only exists in our understanding and not in reality. If this were true, then it would be possible for God to be greater then he is… This would mean that God is a being in which a greater is possible. This is absurd because God, a being in which none greater is possible, is a being in which a greater is possible… Herein lies the contradiction… Thus it follows that it is false for God to only exist in our understanding. Hence God exists in reality as well as our understanding.

Adversity | Fortune | God | Good | Spirit | Supplication | God |

Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

Let us then take care not to despise these things. How absurd it would be to grasp at money and throw away health; and to be lavish of the cleansing of the body, but economical over the cleansing of the soul; and to seek for freedom from earthly slavery, but not to care about heavenly freedom; and to make every effort to be splendidly housed and dressed, but to have never a thought how you yourself may become really very precious; and to be zealous to do good to others, without any desire to do good to yourself. And if good could be bought, you would spare no money; but if mercy is freely at your feet, you despise it for its cheapness. Every time is suitable for your ablution, since any time may be your death. With Paul I shout to you with that loud voice, ‘Behold now is the accepted time; behold Now is the day of salvation.

Adversity | Attention | Esteem | Nothing | Prosperity | Sin | Virtue | Virtue |

Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen

We need not renounce the use of conventional force. We will be ready to repel any clear and present danger that poses a genuine threat to our national security and survival.

Adversity | Mankind | Right | Will | World | Wrong |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

Adversity | Fortune | Good | Men | Time |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business. I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the railways if it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and effective legislation, which shall be based on a full knowledge of all the facts, including a physical valuation of property. This physical valuation is not needed, or, at least, is very rarely needed, for fixing rates; but it is needed as the basis of honest capitalization.

Adversity | Business | Good | Man | Means | Men | Prosperity | Will | Business |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

All we ever intended for him or expected of him was that he should continue to make people everywhere chuckle with him and at him. We didn't burden him with any social symbolism, we made him no mouthpiece for frustrations or harsh satire. Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purposes of laughter.

Adversity | Troubles | World |

Walter Anderson, fully Walter Truett Anderson

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

Adversity | Hope | Life | Life | Wants |

Washington Irving

There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.

Adversity | Comfort | Disgrace | Glory | Love | Mother | Pleasure | Sacrifice | Surrender | Tenderness | Will | World |

Washington Irving

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.

Adversity | Cause | Friend | Mother | Peace | Trials | Will | Trouble | Friends |

Washington Irving

A sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.

Adversity | Cause | Friend | Mother | Peace | Trials | Will | Trouble | Friends |

W. Clement Stone, fully William Clement Stone

Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success or are they holding you back?

Achievement | Adversity | Desire | Mind | Words | Trouble | Learn |

W. Clement Stone, fully William Clement Stone

Everyone who achieves success in a great venture solves each problem as they come to it. They helped themselves. And they were helped through powers known and unknown to them at the time they set out on their voyage. They kept going regardless of the obstacles they met.

Adversity | Magic |

Thucydides NULL

The freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation.

Adversity | Decision | Fate | Fortune | Good | Lesson | Mankind | People | Power | Prosperity | Reason | Success | Truth | War | Fate |

William Shakespeare

Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot! Cymbeline, Act I, Scene 6

Adversity | Death |

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

In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another.

Adversity | Friends |

Ethiopian Proverbs

Great men have big hearts.

Adversity | People | Teach |

Italian Proverbs

Of judgment everyone has a stock on hand for sale.

Adversity |