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

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy . . . At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.

Action | Idealism |

Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

You have no idea how unimportant is all that the teacher says or does not say on the surface, and how important what he himself is as teacher.

Action | Determination | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Thought | Thought |

Ronald A. Heifetz

In this study I will use four criteria to develop a definition of leadership that takes values into account. First, the definition must sufficiently resemble current cultural assumptions so that, when feasible, one’s normal understanding of what it means to lead will apply. Second, the definition should be practical, so that practitioners can make use of it. Third, it should point toward socially useful activities. Finally, the concept should offer a broad definition of social usefulness.

Action |

Rudolf Otto

A child does not notice the greatness and the beauty of nature and the splendor of God in his works.

Action | Mistake | Need | Work | Child |

Ronald A. Heifetz

Yet when faced with an adaptive challenge, an authority might still choose a more autocratic mode as a result of other factors. First, the organization or community may have too little resilience to bear the stresses of adaptive work. Giving the work back to people may overwhelm them and run counter to prevailing norms.

Action | Authority |

Helen Rowland

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attention of many men for the inattention of one.

Action | Conscience | Man |

Rush Limbaugh

We can take this country back. All we need is to nominate the right candidate. It's no more complicated than that.

Action | Power |

Sacha Guitry, fully Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry

A man must marry only a very pretty woman in case he should ever want some other man to take her off his hands.

Action |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

We behold, then, by the sight of the mind, in that eternal truth from which all things temporal are made, the form according to which we are, and according to which we do anything true and right reason, either in ourselves, or in things corporeal.

Action | Life | Life | Pleasure |

Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL

Everyone who does not apply himself to the spiritual contemplation of Holy Scripture has, Judaic-wise, also rejected both the natural and the written law; and he is ignorant of the law of grace which confers deification on those who are obedient to it. He who understands the written law in a literal manner does not nourish his soul with the virtues. He who does not grasp the inner principles of created beings fails to feast his intellect on the manifold wisdom of God. And he who is ignorant of the great mystery of the new grace does not rejoice in the hope of future deification. Thus failure to contemplate the written law spiritually results in a dearth (lack, an inadequate supply) of the divine wisdom to be apprehended in the natural law; and this in its turn is followed by a complete ignorance of the deification given by grace according to the new mystery

Action | Energy | Joy | Nature | Pleasure |

Saint Francis de Sales NULL

All the good we do, we do for love of God, and the evil we avoid, we avoid for love of God.

Action | God | Meditation | Nothing | Order | Study | Understanding | God |

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.

Action |

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

One day when Thomas Aquinas was preaching to the local populace on the love of God, he saw an old woman listening attentively to his every word. And inspired by her eagerness to learn more about her God whom she loved so dearly, he said to the people: It is better to be this unlearned woman, loving God with all her heart, than the most learned theologian lacking love.

Action | Evil | Good |

Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.

Action | Thought | Thought |

Saint Vincent de Paul

Restlessness usually stems from pride and from being discontented with one's lot in life.

Action | Giving | Merit | Obedience |

Samuel Gompers

There is no doubt of the truth . . . that the labor movement has given me the opportunity to learn, to gain experience, and whatever experience, whatever knowledge I may have gained more than the average workman is due to the opportunity that the labor movement has given me, and this I appreciate to the fullest.

Action | Men | Understand |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise.

Action | Mind | Will |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

The morality of an action depends upon the motive from which we act.

Action | Intention | Morality | Respect | Respect |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.

Action | Daring | Men |