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

William Gurnall

God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: 'Who hath required this at your hands?' This is truly to be 'righteous over-much,' as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God's law, and add supplements of our own to his rule.

Debt |

William James

I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man.

Failure | Necessity | Rest | Self | Shame | Work | Failure |

William Law

You are to honor, improve, and perfect the spirit that is within you: you are to prepare it for the kingdom of heaven, to nourish it with the love of God and of virtue, to adorn it with good works, and to make it as holy and heavenly as you can.

Alms | Chastity | God | Heart | Praise | Wills | Work | God |

William Law

The obedience of men is to imitate the obedience of angels, and rational beings on earth are to live unto God, as rational beings in heaven live unto him.

Chastity | World |

William Law

Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world? It is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives most alms or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice; but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness and has a heart always ready to praise God for it. Could you therefore work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit, for it turns all that it touches into happiness.

Alms | Chastity | God | Heart | Praise | Wills | God |

William Shakespeare

Once more, adieu. The rest let sorrow say.

Action | Disguise | Dishonor | Doubt | Good | Man | Men | Mettle | Nature | Nothing | Peace | Spirit | Teach | War | Worth |

Egyptian Proverbs

For every joy there is a price to pay.

William Shakespeare

SIR TOBY BELCH: Pourquoi, my dear knight? SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK: What is "pourquoi?" Do, or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting. O had I but followed the arts!

Art | Art | Think |

William Shakespeare

Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut th' entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.

Art | Art |

William Shakespeare

SAMPSON: My naked weapon is out. Quarrel, I will back thee. GREGORY: How! turn thy back and run? SAMPSON: Fear me not. Gregory: No, marry; I fear thee!

Age | Battle | Enough | Famous | Lord | Present | Sound | Time |

Elizabeth Gilbert

And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?

Enough | God | Good | Love | Nothing | Reading | Service | Story | Woman | God |

Elizabeth Gilbert

In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work …

Better | Earth | Matrimony | Yearnings |

Elizabeth Gilbert

A family in my sister's neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me about this, I could only say, shocked, Dear God, that family needs grace. She replied firmly, That family needs casseroles, and proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this IS grace.

Devil |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Sean said: My father is necessary to learn meditation nirvana, could actually save your life, it will teach you how to live your mind. His father turned to him and said gently: But mainly mental inhabitant son.

Angels |

Emil M. Cioran

If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: "I want to be praised."

Man | Time |

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 |

Ezra Taft Benson

If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim of his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior, let alone behavior for a priesthood holder.

Family | Freedom | God | Government | Guidance | Heaven | History | Individual | Inspiration | Land | Liberty | Man | Men | Mission | Morality | Need | Providence | Religion | Right | Sacred | World | Worship | Government | Guidance | God | Child |

Hannah Arendt

Justice demands seclusion, it permits sorrow rather than anger, and it prescribes the most careful abstention from all the nice pleasures of putting oneself in the limelight.

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

To be a successful clergyman a man must be buttered on both sides.

Devil |

Hannah Arendt

Was it not logical to bring before the court all the facts of the Jewish sufferings (which, of course, were never in dispute) and then look for evidence which in one way or another connect Eichmann with what had happened? The Nuremberg Trials, where the defendants had been ?indicted for crimes against the members of various nations,? had left the Jewish tragedy out of account for the simple reason that Eichmann had not been there.