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 P. Steinmetz, fully Charles Proteus Steinmetz, born Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz

Spiritual power is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest force in the development of men... Some day people will learn that material things do not bring happiness, and are of little use in making people creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of spiritual forces which have hardly been scratched.

Day | Force | History | Little | Men | People | Power | Study | Will | Wisdom | World | Learn |

Harold J. Stonier

With all its alluring promise that some one else will guarantee for a rainy day, social security can never replace the program that man's future welfare, is after all, a matter of individual responsibility.

Day | Future | Guarantee | Individual | Man | Promise | Responsibility | Security | Will | Wisdom |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

Everybody has enemies. to have an enemy is quite another thing. One must be somebody to have an enemy. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force.

Enemy | Force | Wisdom |

Joseph R. Sizoo

Empires build on force will always be destroyed. Those built on trust in Christ will remain.

Force | Trust | Will | Wisdom |

Daniel Webster

The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow man.

Bible | Dignity | Doctrine | Equality | Faith | God | Individual | Man | Religion | Responsibility | Revelation | Wisdom | Bible |

Richard Whately

A mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the education of her child which she told him was then four years old. “madam,” was the reply, “you have lose three years already. From the very first smile that gleams over the infant’s cheek, your opportunity begins.

Education | Mother | Opportunity | Smile | Wisdom | Child |

Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy.

Equality | Passion | Wisdom |

Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.

Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |

Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

Eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute the class that is constantly increased by the equality of conditions. Hence in democratic communities the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one.

Equality | Majority | Men | People | Property | Revolution | Wisdom |

Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.

Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |

Temple Bailey, born Irene Temple Bailey

The mother said, “This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage. Today I have given them strength... This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God... I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know that the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them.” And the children said, “You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.”

Beginning | Better | Children | Courage | Day | Fortitude | God | Journey | Mother | Strength | Will |

Peter L. Berger, fully Peter Ludwig Berger

The consciousness of abiding safety in the bosom of the Church is one of the most serious obstacles to an honest confrontation with the Christian faith.

Church | Consciousness | Faith |

Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev

The political organization of the state rests both on force and on faith.

Faith | Force | Organization |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

The religion of a child depends on what its mother and father are, and not on what they say.

Father | Mother | Religion | Child |