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

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

When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit.

Desire | Gratitude | People | Sense | Friends |

William Shakespeare

Now all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

Desire |

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

When we seek reconciliation with our enemies, it is commonly out of a desire to better our own condition, a being harassed and tired out with a state of war, and a fear of some ill accident which we are willing to prevent.

Desire | Gratitude | Tenderness | Friends |

William Shakespeare

Oh, flatter me; for love delights in praises.

Earth |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

From the vaikrita form of individuation proceeds the eleven-fold set characterized by goodness (sattva); from the bhutadi form of individuation proceed the subtle elements (tanmatras). In this, darkness (tamas) dominates. Both of these proceed from taijasa ahankara, in which rajas dominates.

Desire | Means |

Edwin Percy Whipple

A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.

Character | Desire |

Hu Shih, or Hú Shì

Life and human society are the chief concern of Confucianism and, through it, the chief concern of the Chinese people.

Desire |

Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL

There is another interesting notion is Hakuin s comment: he says satori can disappear, that it may not last forever. This is not what Buddha taught. I am going to compile a page of quotes from classics about the problem of losing enlightment. The general opinion was that it is not real enlightment/wisdom/Tao that can be lost.

Desire |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

These three ancient customs epitomize woman's ordinary way of life and the teachings of the traditional ceremonial rites and regulations. Let a woman modestly yield to others; 1et her respect others; let her put others first, herself last. Should she do something good, let her not mention it; should she do something bad let her not deny it. Let her bear disgrace; let her even endure when others speak or do evil to her. Always let her seem to tremble and to fear. When a woman follows such maxims as these then she may be said to humble herself before others.

Desire | Love | Virtue | Virtue | Woman |

Elihu Root

War comes today as the result of one of three causes: either actual or threatened wrong by one country to another, or suspicion by one country that another intends to do it wrong ... or, from bitterness of feeling, dependent in no degree whatever upon substantial questions of difference. . . . The least of these three causes of war is actual injustice.

Brotherhood | Charity | Desire | Duty | Individual | Judgment | Love | Malice | People | Progress | Prosperity | Regard | Sentiment | Happiness |

Elias L. Magoon

He is always the severest censor on the merits of others who has the least worth of his own.

Earth | Energy | God | Rest | Reward | God |

Elihu Root

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

Desire | Policy | Right |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

This conversation, you will not be surprised to know, was the impetus for their breakup, given that it caused her to realize the emotion that she had thought was her not liking him very much was, in fact, her not liking him at all. Because despite his money and his looks and all the good-on-paper attributes he possessed, he was not a reader, and, well, let's just say that is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put.

Desire | Heart | Memory |

Albert Einstein

If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.

Action | Consequences | Desire | Earnestness | Fulfillment | Individual | Life | Life | Mankind | Opinion | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Struggle |

William Shakespeare

ROSALIND: But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? ORLANDO: Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much. ROSALIND: Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

Desire | Good | Hope |

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 am burdened with what the Buddhists call the monkey mind. The thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. My mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.

Prayer | Universe |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I always thought we only had two choices in our lives when it came to pizza crust—thin and crispy, or thick and doughy. How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and doughy? Holy of holies! Thin, doughy, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise.

Absence | Children | Desire | Enough | People | Reason | Regret | Thinking | Witness | Think |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Life, struck sharp on death, makes awful lightning. His last word was, 'Love–' 'Love, my child, love, love!'–(then he had done with grief) 'Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone, and none was left to love in all the world.

Church | Grave | Heart |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Then he asked me to tell him some stories about India, about America, about Italy, about my family. That's when I realized that I am not Ketut Liyer's English teacher, nor am I exactly his theological student, but I am the merest and simplest of pleasures for this old medicine man- I am his company. I'm somebody he can talk to because he enjoys hearing about the world and he hasn't had much of a chance to see it.

Desire | Love |