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

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 |

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

Humility responds to God's will-to the fear of His judgments and to the needs of those around us. To the proud, the applause of the world rings in their ears; to the humble, the applause of heaven warms their hearts. Someone has said, "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."

Boys | Children | Church | Desire | Family | Future | Giving | Hope | Man | Men | Mission | Prayer | Principles | Reading | Religion | Will | Old |

Ezra Taft Benson

Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any earthly possession. As a United States citizen I believe it is guaranteed in our heaven-inspired Constitution.

Balance | Cause | Church | Counsel | Earth | Freedom | Giving | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mission | People | Play | Position | Present | Prophecy | Satan | Loss | Counsel |

Ezra Taft Benson

More than ever before, we need to learn and apply the principles of economic self-reliance. We do not know when the crisis involving sickness or unemployment may affect our own circumstances. We do know that the Lord has decreed global calamities for the future and has warned and forewarned us to be prepared. For this reason the Brethren have repeatedly stressed a 'back to basics' program for temporal and spiritual welfare.

Church | Government | Hope | Land | Spirituality | Tradition | Will | Witness | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

On what basis can we morally resist tyranny? I say to you with all the fervor of my soul that God intended men to be free. Rebellion against tyranny is a righteous cause. It is an enormous evil for any man to be enslaved to any system contrary to his own will. For that reason men, 200 years ago, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. No nation which has kept the commandments of God has ever perished, but I say to you that once freedom is lost, only blood – human blood – will win it back.

Care | Church | Family | Government | Individual | Receive | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Spending time with your children is the greatest gift of all.

Argument | Authority | Danger | Force | Good | Government | Grave | Growth | History | Hope | Individual | Little | People | Power | Right | Time | Will | Government | Danger |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point.

Church | Music |

Ezra Taft Benson

I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society. It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before. 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.

Church | Doctrine | Future | Government | Inheritance | Men | Rights | System | Will | Government |

Felix Adler

An ideal is a port toward which we resolve to steer. We may not reach it. The mere fact that our goal is definitely located does not suffice to conduct us thither. But surely we shall thus stand a better chance of making port in the end than if we drift about aimlessly, the sport of winds and tides, without having decided in our own minds in what direction we ought to bend our course. The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.

Age | Childhood | Father | Mother | Respect | Reverence | Respect |

Felix Adler

Already complaints are multiplying on every hand that that most gracious quality of all that adorns the age of childhood — the quality of reverence — is fast fading from our schools and households; that the oldtime respect for father and mother is diminished, and grown rarer and more uncertain.

Consideration | Custom | Force | Public |

Felix Adler

It is the business of the preacher, not only to state moral truths, but to inspire his hearers with a realizing sense of their value, and to awaken in them the desire to act accordingly. He can do this only by putting his own purpose as a yeast into their hearts. The influence of the right sort of preachers cannot be spared. The human race is not yet so far advanced that it can dispense with the impulses that come from men of more than average intensity of moral energy. Let us produce, through the efficacy of a better moral life and of a deeper moral experience, a surer faith in the ultimate victory of the good.

Ends | Force | Good | Nature | Progress | Will | Work | World |

Felix Adler

The exercises of our meeting are to be simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism. They are to consist of a lecture mainly, and, as a pleasing and grateful auxiliary, of music to elevate the heart and give rest to the feelings.

Church | Custom | Public |

Felix Adler

Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil.

Aid | Cause | Culture | Evolution | Experience | Faith | Force | Humanity | Life | Life | Mankind | Morality | Nature | Optimism | Past | Peace | Pessimism | Power | Will |

Felix Adler

We cannot adopt the way of living that was satisfactory a hundred years ago. The world in which we live has changed, and we must change with it.

Force | Hero | Obedience | Soul |

Felix Adler

The truth which has made us free will in the end make us glad also.

Events | Force | Life | Life | Meaning | Learn |

Gustave Flaubert

Isn?t ?not to be bored? one of the principal goals of life?

Mother |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.

Love | Mother |

Gustavo Gutiérrez

There exists a dialectical relationship between the Promise and its partial fulfillments. The resurrection itself is the fulfillment of something promised and likewise the anticipation of a future.

Friend | Mother |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.

Church |