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

Emile Gaboriau

Vengeance is a delicious fruit, which must be allowed to ripen in order that it may be fully enjoyed.

People |

Emile Zola

In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.

Despair | Destroy | Effort | Good | Honor | Innocence | Life | Life | Man | Men | Office | Order | People | Public | Society | War | Society |

Emile Zola

An entire lifetime would not be long enough for you to exhaust the glance of the young harvest-girl.

Fun | People | Thought | Thought |

Emile Zola

It was at times like this that one of those waves of bestiality ran through the mine, the sudden lust of the male that came over a miner when he met one of these girls on all fours, with her rear in the air and her buttocks busting out of her breeches.

Heart | Little | People | Understand |

Emile Zola

The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, frustrated by their bad luck, and ready to use any means necessary to advance their cause. They were a family of bandits lying in wait, ready to plunder and steal.

Affront | Deeds | Indignation | Language | Men | Need | Nothing | People | Public | Punishment | Rank | Remorse | Thought | Traitor | Deeds | Thought |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

He ate and drank the precious words, his spirit grew robust; he knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was dust. He danced along the dingy days, and this bequest of wings was but a book. What liberty a loosened spirit brings!

People | Will |

Emile Zola

And then there was pain and blood and tears, all those things that cause suffering and revolt, the killing of Françoise, the killing of Fouan, vice triumphing, and the stinking, bloodthirsty peasants, vermin who disgrace and exploit the earth. But can you really know? Just as the frost that burns the crops, the hail that chops them down, the thunderstorms which batter them are all perhaps necessary, maybe blood and tears are needed to keep the world going. And how important is human misery when weighed against the mighty mechanism of the stars and the sun? What does God care for us? We earn our bread only by dint of a cruel struggle, day in, day out. And only the earth is immortal, the Great Mother from whom we spring and to whom we return, love of whom can drive us to crime and through whom life is perpetually preserved for her own inscrutable ends, in which even our wretched degraded nature has its part to play.

Good | Life | Life | People | Promise | Right | Thought | Will | Thought |

Emile Zola

As they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth, as I have pledged to tell it, in full, since the normal channels of justice have failed to do so.

Action | Harm | Humanity | Law | People | Protest | Truth | Will |

Emiliano Zapata, fully Emiliano Zapata Salazar

The land free, the land free for all, land without overseers and without masters.

Freedom | People | Sacrifice |

Emma Goldman

Oscar Wilde defines a perfect personality as one who develops under perfect conditions, who is not wounded, maimed, or in danger. A perfect personality, then, is only possible in a state of society where man is free to choose the mode of work, the conditions of work, and the freedom to work. One to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist -- the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force.

People | Will |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me - now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives. I could do it, and none could hinder me; but where is the use? I don't care for striking - I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been laboring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case. I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

People | Power |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!

Better | Hate | Love | People |

Emma Goldman

Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings to man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man's subordination. Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely in nature, but in man.

Desire | Individual | Integrity | Nothing | People | Plenty | War | Wisdom |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

We dream — it is good we are dreaming — it would hurt us — were we awake —but since it is playing — kill us, and we are playing — shriek — What harm? Men die — externally —it is a truth — of Blood —but we — are dying in Drama —and Drama — is never dead — cautious — We jar each other —and either — open the eyes — lest the Phantasm — prove the Mistake —and the livid Surprise. Cool us to Shafts of Granite —with just an Age — and Name — and perhaps a phrase in Egyptian — it's prudenter — to dream —

People | Play | Will |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; A clover, any time, to him is aristocracy.

People |

Emma Goldman

Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social, and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime.

Heaven | Meekness | People | Reward |

Emma Goldman

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

People |

Emma Goldman

The God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.

People |

Emmet Fox

God is fully present here with me, now. God is the only real Presence, all the rest is but a shadow. God is perfect Good, and God is the cause only of perfect Good. The same fountain cannot send forth both sweet and bitter water. God never sends sickness, trouble, accident, temptation, nor death itself; nor does He authorize these things. I am divine spirit. I am a child of God. In God I live and move and have my being; so I do not fear. I am surrounded by the Presence of God and all is well. I am not afraid of the past; I am not afraid of the present; I am not afraid of the future; for God is with me. The Eternal God is my dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms. Nothing can touch me but the direct action of God Himself, and God is Love.

Difficulty | God | People | Trust | Worship | God |