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

Felix Adler

Few are there that will leave the secure seclusion of the scholar's life, the peaceful walks of literature and learning, to stand out a target for the criticism of unkind and hostile minds.

Good | Human race | Progress | Race | Religion | Space | Will | World |

Ezra Taft Benson

It was from him [Joseph Smith] that I learned that the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all eternity; and that the refined sympathies and affections which endeared us to each other emanated from the fountain of divine eternal love. It was from him that I learned that we might cultivate these affections, and grow and increase in the same to all eternityÂ… 'It was from him that I learned the true dignity and destiny of a son of God, clothed with an eternal priesthood, as the patriarch and sovereign of his [family]. It was from him that I learned that the highest dignity of womanhood was, to stand as a queen and priestess to her husband. We qualify for these blessings when we go with a companion to the house of the Lord and receive the sealing ordinances that bind the family unit beyond the grave. These blessings are received in no other way, for as the Lord has decreed, 'Except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory', which glory is an eternal.

Belief | Credit | Faith | Glory | God | Land | Men | Plan | Principles | Purpose | Purpose | Rights | God |

Ezra Taft Benson

Our Creator endowed each one of us with certain rights at birth, among which are the rights to life, liberty, speech, and conscience, to name a few. These are not just human rights; they are divine rights. When these rights are not permitted expression by a nation, that nation becomes inhibited in its progress and development, and its leaders are responsible before God for suffocating sacred rights. This native endowment is what separates man from the animals. It causes men to want to be good and to seek higher aspirations. It creates in man a desire to better his life and his station in life.

Business | Freedom | Future | Guarantee | Individual | Judgment | People | Power | Public | Rights | System | Wants | Wishes | Business |

Ezra Taft Benson

Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world.

Government | Rights | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

That government is best which governs the least, so taught the courageous founders of this nation. This simple declaration is diametrically opposed to the all too common philosophy that the government should protect and support one from the cradle to the grave. The policy of the Founding Fathers has made our people and our nation strong. The opposite leads inevitably to moral decay.

Accident | Cost | Danger | Debt | Defense | Despot | Enjoyment | Eternal | Faith | God | Government | Inspiration | Life | Life | Man | Means | Need | Nothing | People | Principles | Prophecy | Receive | Responsibility | Rights | Theories | Trust | Vigilance | Weakness | Will | Wise | Words | Government | Danger | God | Privilege | Understand |

Ezra Taft Benson

Unless we do his teachings, we do not demonstrate faith in him.

Capacity | Children | Free enterprise | People | System | Will | World |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Any organization or any individual that targets civilians and kills them for political agenda is a terrorist organization.

Arrogance | Belief | Play | Truth | World |

Felix Adler

It is the prerogative of man that he need not blindly follow the law of his natural being, but is himself the author of a higher moral law, and creates it even in acting it out.

Confidence | Giving | Good | Influence | Nature | Nobility | Wisdom | Wise |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I worked as a teacher in the public school system in New York City for several years, and I was a victim of the layoffs, you know, in the mid-'70s. And then I worked as a sales engineer for a company in New Jersey that was selling industrial filtration equipment.

Religion |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians, but it was Christians in World War II who bombed innocent civilians in Dresden and dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.

Faith | God | Witness | God |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The opposition tried to brand us as the 'Ground Zero megamosque.' The language was deliberately wordsmithed in order to arouse hostility against us. But the idea that the Jewish mayor of New York City and the president of the United States supported a mosque at Ground Zero, and took a lot of flak for it, raised their stature in the Muslim world.

Kill | Method | War | World |

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Historians today are priests of a cult of truth, called to the service of a god whose existence they are doomed to doubt.

Excess | Fear | Individual | Modernity | People | Sense | Society | Terror | World | Society |

Felix Adler

It is not possible to enter into the nature of the Good by standing aloof from it — by merely speculating upon it. Act the Good, and you will believe in it. Throw yourself into the stream of the world's good tendency and you will feel the force of the current and the direction in which it is setting. The conviction that the world is moving toward great ends of progress will come surely to him who is himself engaged in the work of progress.

Better | Business | Little | Pleasure | World | Business |

Felix Adler

Let us found religion upon a basis of perfect intellectual honesty. Religion, if it is to mean anything at all, must stand for the highest truth. How then can the cause of truth be served by the sacrifice, more or less disguised, of one's intellectual convictions?

Man | Nature |

Ezra Taft Benson

What are these fundamental principles which have allowed the United States to progress so rapidly and yet remain free? First, a written Constitution clearly defining the limits of government so that government will not become more powerful than the people.

Agony | Earth | Force | Freedom | Government | Harm | Improvement | Individual | People | Power | World | Zeal | Government |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Staying chaste until marriage, a commandment of my faith, was one of the most difficult challenges of my young life. I had a powerful sense that if I did not get a grip on my identity, my ethics, and my religion, I would go off the rails.

God | Relationship | Submission | God |

Felix Adler

Of the origin of things we know nothing, and can know nothing. Perfection does not reveal itself to us as existent in the beginning; but as something that ought to be, something new which we are to help create. Somehow the secret of the universe is hidden in our breast. Somehow the destinies of the universe depend upon our exertions.

Church | Power |

Ezra Taft Benson

I believe one of the most serious mistakes a President could make would be to weaken the Constitution. From the time I was a small boy I was taught that the American Constitution is an inspired document. I was also taught that the day will come when the Constitution will be endangered and hang as it were by a single thread. I was taught that we should study the Constitution. . . . I expect to continue my efforts to help protect and safeguard our inspired Constitution.

Applause | Fear | Heaven | Pleasure | World |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

I've spoken with friends who are rabbis and priests and we've agreed that most people have an emotional attachment to their faith, a desire to fulfill their spiritual longings, but they are not experts in understanding the history of their religion.

People | Responsibility | Truth |

Felix Adler

It is the moral element contained in it that alone gives value and dignity to a religion, and only in so far as its teachings serve to stimulate and purify our moral aspirations does it deserve to retain its ascendency over mankind.

Better | Business | Desire | Faith | Human race | Influence | Life | Life | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Race | Right | Sense | Business |