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

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

Afraid |

Democritus NULL

If you do not desire much, little will seem much to you, for small wants give poverty the power of wealth.

Desire | Little | Poverty | Power | Wants | Wealth | Will |

Dag Hammarskjöld

Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.

Duty | Life | Life | Position | Receive | Right |

David Friedman

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

Children | Force | Nations |

Dennis Genpo Merzel, aka Genpo Merzel Roshi

We think of death are separate phenomena. We never think of life and death as the same; that would be illogical. Only one problem, one small problem: reality is not logical. Truth is not rational; only our minds are. We are so egotistical, so arrogant, that we want to make reality into a concept, reduce life to a logical idea. We spend all our time looking for some concept of Truth, but Truth is what is left when we drop all concepts. Then there is just scratching when it itches.

Death | Life | Life | Phenomena | Reality | Time | Truth | Think |

Edmund Burke

Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the small and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure.

Elegance | Force | Life | Life | Pleasure | Regulation | Taste | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |

Dwight Eisenhower, fully Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower

You must not retain for one instant any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do the job… This matter frequently calls for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.

Ability | Courage | Man | Position | Will |

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

Almost everyone takes pleasure in returning small obligations; many are grateful for moderate ones; but there is scarcely anyone who has anything but ingratitude for great ones.

Ingratitude | Pleasure |

Edwin Way Teale

You can prove almost anything with the evidence of a small enough segment of time. How often, in any search for truth, the answer of the minute is positive, the answer of the hour qualified, the answers of the year contradictory!

Enough | Evidence | Search | Time | Truth |

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Life also occurs between the big moments. Much of what we need to learn is found in the small moments of life.

Life | Life | Need | Learn |

Francis Bacon

It will be found a work of no small difficulty to dispossess a vice from the heart, where long possession begins to plead prescription.

Difficulty | Heart | Will | Work | Vice |

Francis Bacon

The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.

Axioms | Nature | Sense | Understanding |

George Herbert

From small fires comes oft no small mishap.

George F. Kennan

The growth of bureaucracy is largely self-engendered, in the sense that only a small part of it derides from the real requirements of the function to be served, the greater part being the product of tendencies and pressures arising within the bureaucratic process.

Growth | Self | Sense |

Franklin D. Roosevelt, fully Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aka FDR

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first freedom is speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world-terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world-terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

Aggression | Fear | Freedom from fear | Freedom | Future | God | Life | Life | Means | Position | Speech | Time | Vision | Will | World | Worship | God |

Gary Zukav

The mind-expanding discovery of quantum mechanics is that Newtonian physics does not apply to subatomic phenomena... We cannot know both the position and the momentum of a particle with absolute precision... This is Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Absolute | Discovery | Mind | Phenomena | Position | Precision | Uncertainty | Discovery |

George Washington Carver

What is the Infinite? It is that silent, small force? It isn't the outer physical contacts. No, it isn't that. The infinite is not confined in the visible world. It is not in the earthquake, the wind, or the fire. It is that still small voice that calls up the fairies.

Force | World |

Gustave Le Bon

The conscious life of the mind is of small importance in comparison with its unconscious life.

Life | Life | Mind |