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

Ester and Jerry Hicks

It is so easy to make the finding of the path so much more complicated than it really needs to be because from within you know if you have been willing to tune yourself to feeling good, no matter what, so that that's what matters most to you...then in your natural quest for joy you'll just keep being on your path...your path unfolds.

Attention | Example | Practice | Will | Value |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

You are on the leading edge of thought, taking thought beyond that which it has been before.

Attention | World |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Hence arises a perception which represents them to us as distant and limited; and which consequently implies the idea of some extension.

Attention | Memory | Public |

Eugene Peterson

But then it begins to develop a culture and language and hierarchy all its own. It becomes first a special interest, and then a specialization. That is what seems to be happening in the circles you are frequenting. I seriously doubt that it is a healthy (holy) line to be pursuing.

Attention | Church | People |

Eugene Peterson

The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.

Attention | Glory | Irony | People | Prayer | Scripture |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

There were two reasons why persons of any abilities, that attempted this kind of music, could not help meeting with success. The first is, that without doubt they pitched upon such pieces, as in the course of reciting, they had been accustomed to render particularly expressive; or at least they imagined some such. The second is the surprise, which this music must needs have produced by its novelty. The greater the surprise she greater the impression of the music.

Attention | Circumstances | Object |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

These two arts associated themselves with that of gesture, their elder sister, and known by the name of Dance. From whence there is reason to conjecture, that some kind of dance, and some kind of music and poetry, might have been observed at all times, and in all nations.

Attention | Giving | Order |

Eugene Peterson

Forgiveness is the last word. I take no interest in eliminating the tension between justice and forgiveness by taking justice off the table.

Attention | Focus | People | Will | World | Wrong |

Eugene Peterson

By setting the anguish out into the open and voicing it as a prayer, the psalm gives dignity to our suffering. It does not look on suffering as something slightly embarrassing that must be hushed up and locked in a closet (where it finally becomes a skeleton) because this sort of thing shouldnÂ’t happen to a real person of faith. And it doesnÂ’t treat it as a puzzle that must be explained, and therefore turn it over to theologians or philosophers to work out an answer. Suffering is set squarely, openly, passionately before God. It is acknowledged and expressed. It is described and lived.

Culture | Doubt | Language |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Child labor must be abolished by the working class.

Better | Comfort | Culture | Day | Health | Labor |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.

Attention | Mind | Writing |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

The African is here and to stay. How came he to our shores? Ask your grandfathers, Mr. Anonymous, and if they will tell the truth you will or should blush for the crimes.

Labor | Mission | Power | Public | World |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Why should a Socialist be discouraged on the eve of the greatest triumph in all the history of the Socialist movement? It is true that these are anxious, trying days for us all — testing days for the women and men who are upholding the banner of labor in the struggle of the working class of all the world against the exploiters of all the world; a time in which the weak and cowardly will falter and fail and desert. They lack the fiber to endure the revolutionary test; they fall away; they disappear as if they had never been. On the other hand, they who are animated by the unconquerable spirit of the social revolution; they who have the moral courage to stand erect and assert their convictions; stand by them; fight for them; go to jail or to hell for them, if need be — they are writing their names, in this crucial hour — they are writing their names in faceless letters in the history of mankind.

Agitation | Capitalism | Mission | Will |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.

Culture |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.

Age | Attention | Land | Order | Past |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

Age | Culture | Evil | Father | God | Loathing | Obedience | Politics | God | Old |

Gore Vidal, fully Eugene Luther Gore Vidal

The American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earthÂ…and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the readerÂ’s attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

Evil | Freedom | Happy | History | People | Purpose | Purpose |

Eugenio Montale

Back to event the sun and the widespread voices, not the usual noises door.

Culture | Men | Friends |

Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen

Mr. President, economy is an old-fashioned thing. It savors of horse and buggy days. I am only too glad, however, to say a few words in behalf of economy, for in economy, in frugality, and in the thrift of our Government I think we shall ultimately find ourselves and our salvation.

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