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

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

The old -- like children -- talk to themselves, for they have reached that hopeless wisdom of experience which knows that though one were to cry it in the streets to multitudes, or whisper it in the kiss to one's beloved, the only ears that can ever hear one's secrets are one's own!

Life | Life | Nothing | Truth | World |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

The great curse of modern philosophy is the almost universally prevailing rebellion against intellectual self-discipline. Where loose thinking obtains, truth cannot possibly be grasped, whence the conclusion naturally follows that there is no truth.

History | Skepticism | Study |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

I am so far from being a pessimist... on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.

People | Will | World |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

The fog was where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is. That’s what I wanted—to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself. Out beyond the harbor, where the road runs along the beach, I even lost the feeling of being on land. The fog and the sea seemed part of each other. It was like walking on the bottom of the sea. As if I had drowned long ago. As if I was the ghost belonging to the fog, and the fog was the ghost of the sea. It felt damned peaceful to be nothing more than a ghost within a ghost.

Men | Poverty | Child |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

There are rational proofs by which we can know with certitude that God exists; but the certitude of faith, which is based on the infallibility of the word of God, is infinitely more reliable than all knowledge acquired by natural reason alone, no matter how evident it may be. In matters of revelation, error is absolutely impossible because the source of the knowledge of faith is God Himself, who is the Truth.

God | Men | God |

Eudora Welty

The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.

People | Religion | Soul | World | Think |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

And yet it is not always in our power to revive the perceptions we have felt. On some occasions the most we can do is by recalling to mind their names, to recollect some of the circumstances atr tending them, and an abstract idea of perception; an idea which we are capable of framing every instant, because we never think without being conscious of some perception which it depends on ourselves, to render genera).

Happy | Ideas | Imagination | Men | Reason |

Eudora Welty

Every writer, like everybody else, thinks he's living through the crisis of the ages. To write honestly and with all our powers is the least we can do, and the most.

Challenge | Children | Cost | Enough | Good | Love | Mind | Mother | Time | World |

Eudora Welty

I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

Character | Good | Pleasure | Speech | Thought | World | Think | Thought |

Eugen Herrigel

Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! he exclaimed. The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.

Aptitude | Awareness | Cult | Danger | Ego | Existence | Life | Life | Present | Reason | Right | Spirit | Success | Time | Witness | Worth | Talent | Danger | Awareness | Teacher |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

Men |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Our declamatory speaking is therefore naturally less expressive than music. For I want to know what sound is best adapted to express any particular passion? In the first place, it must surely be that which imitates the natural sign of this passion; and' this is common both to declamation and music.

Prejudice | Progress |

Eugene Peterson

Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.

Integrity | Man | Men | Relationship | Responsibility | Title | Wisdom |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

If one is a philosopher, he can do nothing else than philosophize; or, if he does something else, he will do it with a view to securing the freedom he needs for philosophizing.

Reason | World |

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

When a man does not form connections, it is going to be the point considered, but a woman whom no one seems to have failed to attach any part.

Evil | Men |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time

Dreams | Life | Life | Little | Worth |

Eudora Welty

To explain responsibility to advertising men is like trying to convince an eight-year-old that sexual intercourse is more fun than a chocolate ice cream cone.

World |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

The prosody of different languages does not deviate equally from music. In some it affects a greater, in some a lesser variety of accents, because from the variety of constitutions in people of different climates, it is impossible they should have the same sensibility.

Impression | Perception | Progress |

Eugene Peterson

Forgiveness is the last word. I take no interest in eliminating the tension between justice and forgiveness by taking justice off the table.

Attention | Focus | People | Will | World | Wrong |