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

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

The office of the religious teacher is to be a seer, and to make others see, and thus to win them into the upward way.

Office | Public | Teacher |

Faye Wattleton

I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.

Means | Nature | Sacrifice | Will | Think |

Felix Adler

The right for the right's sake is the motto which everyone should take for his own life. With that as a standard of value we can descend into our hearts, appraise ourselves, and determine in how far we already are moral beings, in how far not yet.

Future | Indispensable | Individual | Service | Time | Will |

Felix Adler

The world is dark around us and the prospect seems deepening in gloom. and yet there is light ahead. On the volume of the past in starry characters it is written — the starry legend greets us shining through the misty vistas of the future — that the great and noble shall not perish from among the sons of men, that the truth will triumph in the end, and that even the humblest of her servants may in this become the instrument of unending good. We are aiding in laying the foundations of a mighty edifice, whose completion shall not be seen in our day, no, nor in centuries upon centuries after us. But happy are we, indeed, if we can contribute even the least towards so high a consummation. The time calls for action. Up, then, and let us do our part faithfully and well. And oh, friends, our children's children will hold our memories dearer for the work which we begin this hour.

Corruption | Honor | Marriage | Public | Shame |

Felix Adler

What I state as certain is certain for me. It has approved itself as such in my experience. Let others consult their experience, and see how far it tallies with that which is here set forth.

Age | Children | Need | Nothing | Teach |

Gustave Flaubert

None of us can ever express the exact measure of our needs, or our ideas, or our sorrows, and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when we long to inspire pity in the stars.

Play |

Gustave Flaubert

Love... must come suddenly, with great thunderclaps and bolts of lightning -- a hurricane from heaven that drops down on your life, overturns it, tears away your will like a leaf, and carries your whole heart off with it into the abyss.

Gustavo Gutiérrez

Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to benefit a few who appropriate to themselves the value of the work of others. This transformation ought to be directed toward a radical change in the foundation of society, that is, the private ownership of the means of production.

Age | Light |

Gustavo Dudamel and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra

You learn a lot about each other from a tour, musically and humanly.

Public |

Gustavo Gutiérrez

But there is one thing that is privileged to be a paradoxical sign of God, in relation to which men are able to manifest their deepest commitment -- our Neighbor. The sacrament of our Neighbor!'

Public |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

Hannah Arendt

Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people are surrounded by ?a world of enemies? - ?one against all? - and that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.

Public |

Italian Proverbs

Of this world each man has as much as he takes.

Life | Life | Men |

Italian Proverbs

The gardener's dog does not eat lettuce and will not let others eat it.

Age |

Italian Proverbs

t is better to ride a donkey that carries you than a horse that throws you.

Change | Opinion | Public |

Italian Proverbs

The devil is bad because he is old.

Ability | Age | Art | Control | Culture | Humor | Memory | Need | Time | Work | World | Art |

Italian Proverbs

Through being too knowing the fox lost his tail.

Government | Guilt | People | Public | Truth | Warning | Government |

Italian Proverbs

To a crazy ship every wind is contrary.

Inevitable | News | Public | Talking |

Italian Proverbs

The virtue of silence is a great piece of knowledge.

Public | Question |