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

Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.

Ability | Day |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

But if NATO’s only strength is that it can bomb forever, then it has to get every ounce out of that. Let’s at least have a real air war. The idea that people are still holding rock concerts in Belgrade, or going out for Sunday merry-go-round rides, while their fellow Serbs are ”cleansing” Kosovo, is outrageous. It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted. Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too.

Ability | Day | Experiment | Mother | Nature | Will | Learn |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

The next six months in Iraq — which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there — are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time.

Ability | Important | Skill | Learn |

Thornton Wilder, fully Thornton Niven Wilder

I think that it can be assumed that no adults are ever really 'shocked' - that being shocked is always a pose.

Ability | Rank |

Thucydides NULL

I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.

Ability | Envy | Exaggeration | Friend | Men | Story | Wishes | Think |

Thucydides NULL

In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.

Ability | Action | Argument | Intelligence | Men | Need | Thought | Afraid | Thought |

Thurgood Marshall

The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.

Ability | Compassion | Greatness |

Thucydides NULL

You are convinced by experience that very few things are brought to a successful issue by impetuous desire, but most by calm and prudent forethought.

Ability | Audacity | Change | Courage | Extreme | Man | Meaning | Means | Moderation | Moderation | Afraid |

William James

The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments... I will write these traits down in two columns. I think you will practically recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns by the titles 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' respectively.

Ability | Thought | Thought |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

The height of ability in the least able consists in knowing how to submit to the good leadership of others.

Ability | Age | Genius | Knowledge | Value |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation.

Ability |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it; nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage.

Ability | Advice | Good |

Elif Safak

As soon as the words were out, sorry. Was preferable to the man considered extremely being a woman, as no other. It should not have to show any of it or another, it is imperfect, vulnerable person like everyone else. If you know that wearing a heart of glass, it will break.

Ability | Art | Practice | Reason | Art |

Eleanor Brown, fully Nora Eleanor Louisa Hervey Brown

How old were you when you first realized that your parents were human? That they were not omnipotent, that what they said did not, in fact, go, they had dreams and feelings and scars? Or have you not realized that yet? Do you still call your parents and have a one-sided conversation with them, child to parent, not adult to adult?

Ability |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Om Namah Shivaya, meaning, I honor the divinity that resides within me.

Ability | Lord | Words |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I do not need to love you to prove that I love myself!!

Ability | Means | Men |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Those who are beloved cannot die, because love means immortality.

Ability | Laughter | Quiet |