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

Blaise Pascal

For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions, according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that pint which ought to be our ultimate end.

Death | Eternal | Eternity | Judgment | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | Truth |

Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

For that which is born death is certain, and for the dead birth is certain. Therefore grieve not over that which is unavoidable.

Birth | Death |

Bernie S. Siegel

The emotional environment we create within our bodies can activate mechanisms of destruction or repair.

Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

Never the spirit born; the spirit shall cease to be never; never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems.

Beginning | Death | Dreams | Spirit | Time |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual beyond the grave; that all the laborers of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievements must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Death | Devotion | Dispute | Genius | Grave | Growth | Hope | Individual | Inspiration | Man | Philosophy | System | Thought | Universe | Thought |

Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

For that which is born, death is certain; and for the dead, birth is certain. Therefore, grieve not over that which is unavoidable.

Birth | Death |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

Achievement | Death | Devotion | Genius | Inspiration | Man | System | Universe |

Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

For certain is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead; therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.

Birth | Death | Inevitable |

Charles Caleb Colton

There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to God. The victim of the fanatical persecutor will find that the stronger the motives he can urge for mercy are, the weaker will be his chance for obtaining it, for the merit of his destruction will be supposed to rise in value in proportion as it is effected at the expense of every feeling both of justice and of humanity.

Chance | Cruelty | God | Humanity | Justice | Mercy | Merit | Motives | Service | Will | Cruelty | Value | Victim |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?

Death | Men | Mourn |

Chinese Proverbs

To see through fame and wealth is to gain a little rest; to see through life and death is to gain a big rest.

Death | Fame | Life | Life | Little | Rest | Wealth |

Claude Bernard

A living organism is nothing but a wonderful machine endowed with the most marvelous properties and set going by means of the most complex and delicate mechanism. There are no forces opposed and struggling one with another; in nature there can be only order and disorder, harmony or discord... Sickness and death are merely a dissolution or disturbance of the mechanism which regulates the contact of vital stimulants with organic units.

Death | Harmony | Means | Nature | Nothing | Order | Organic |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

Until we know what life is, how can we know what death is?

Death | Life | Life |

Coretta Scott King

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder.

Death | Evil | Husband | Justice | Law | Life | Life | Morality | Mother | Murder | Retaliation | Murder |

Dag Hammarskjöld

In the last analysis it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.

Death | Life | Life |

Dag Hammarskjöld

The longest journey is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, who has started upon his quest for the source of his being (Is there a source?). He is still with you, but without relation, isolated in your feeling like one condemned to death or one whom imminent farewell prematurely dedicates to the loneliness which is the final lot of all. Between you and him is distance, uncertainty - care.

Care | Death | Destiny | Journey | Loneliness | Uncertainty |

Dag Hammarskjöld

To reach perfection, we must all pass one by one, through the death of self-effacement.

Death | Perfection | Self |

Dag Hammarskjöld

Because it is more difficult to limit wars to a single area, all wars are of concern for all nations. Not only construction, but also destruction may today be global.

Global | Nations |