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

Charles Kingsley

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Comfort | Happy | Life | Life | Luxury | Need | Wisdom |

Walter Lippmann

Politicians tend to live "in character," and many a public figure has come to imitate the journalism which describes him.

Character | Public | Wisdom |

Abraham Lincoln

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

Government | Individual | Need | Object | People | Wisdom | Government |

Walter Lippmann

Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular -- not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.

Consideration | Democracy | Good | Men | Public | Servitude | Talking | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Neil MacCormick, Sir Donald Neil MacCormick

When we say that law ‘embodies’ values we are talking metaphorically. What does it mean? Values are only ‘embodied’ in law in the sense that and to the extent that human beings approve of the laws they have because of the state of affairs they are supposed to secure, being states of affairs which are on some ground deemed just or otherwise good. This need not be articulated at all.

Good | Law | Need | Sense | Talking | Wisdom |

Maurice Nicoll

We need to get rid of some false meanings that we give to the words eternal and eternity. The psychological idea connected with eternal life cannot be limited to the view that man is changed into another state at death, merely by the act of dying. It would be far more correct to say that it refers, first of all, to some change that man is capable of undergoing now, in this life, and one that is connected with the attainment of unity. The modern term psychology means literally the science of the soul. But in former times there actually existed a science of the soul based upon the idea that man is an imperfect state but capable of reaching a further state... No totality-act is possible; the will is separate from knowledge, the feeling from intellect.

Attainment | Change | Death | Eternal | Eternity | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Means | Need | Psychology | Science | Soul | Unity | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Arne Dekke Eide Naess

Extensive moralizing within the ecological movement has given the public the false impression that they are being asked to make a sacrifice - to show more responsibility, more concern, and a nicer moral standard. But all of that would flow naturally and easily if the self were widened and deepened so that the protection of nature was felt and perceived as protection of our very selves.

Impression | Nature | Public | Responsibility | Sacrifice | Self | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Those who give the first shock to a state are naturally the first to be overwhelmed in its ruin. The fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by the man who was the first to set it a going; he only troubles the water for another’s net.

Man | Public | Troubles | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Wisdom has its excesses, and is in no less need of moderation than folly.

Folly | Moderation | Need | Wisdom | Moderation |

John Middleton Murry

When a man is sure that all he wants is happiness, then most grievously he deceives himself. All men desire happiness, but they need something far different, compared to which happiness is trivial, and in the lack of which happiness turns to bitterness in the mouth. There are many names for that which men need - "the one thing needful" - but the simplest is "wholeness."

Bitterness | Desire | Man | Men | Need | Wants | Wholeness | Wisdom | Happiness |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection.

Children | Father | Need | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

It takes a lot of self-love and presumption to have such esteem for one’s own opinions that to establish them one must overthrow the public peace and introduce so many inevitable evils, and such a horrible corruption of morals, as civil wars and political changes bring with them in a matter of such weight - and introduce them into one’s own country.

Corruption | Esteem | Inevitable | Love | Peace | Presumption | Public | Self | Self-love | Wisdom |

Pierre Nicole

We need a reason to speak, but none to keep silent.

Need | Reason | Wisdom |

Donn Piatt

There is no tyranny so despotic as that of public opinion among a free people.

Opinion | People | Public | Tyranny | Wisdom |

Nikita Ivanovich Panin

The husband needs to be blind at times; the wife deaf; both need much of the time to be dumb.

Husband | Need | Time | Wife | Wisdom |