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

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

Innovators and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the end) of their careers.

Beginning | Genius | Men | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent of every ill-judged outlay.

Genius | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.

Genius | Love | Truth | Wisdom |

John Hall

Culture is good, genius is brilliant, civilization is a blessing, education is a great privilege; but we may be educated villains. The thing that we want most of all is the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.

Civilization | Culture | Education | Genius | Good | Wisdom |

Johann Gottfried von Herder

The working of revolutions misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.

Genius | Humanity | Race | Wisdom |

Washington Irving

It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear dullness to maturity; and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony places of the world, and some may be choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of vegetation.

Chance | Genius | Glory | Nature | Struggle | Will | Wisdom |

Anna Jameson

As what we call genius arises out of the disproportionate power and size of a certain faculty, so the great difficulty lies in harmonizing with it the rest of the character.

Character | Difficulty | Genius | Power | Rest | Size | Wisdom |

J. Z. Knight, fully Judy Zebra Knight, born Judity Darlene Hampton

Mere survival has always been the surface, bottom-line surface for our existence... Survival alone does not ennoble us... True meaning... can be found in what we’ve yet to accomplish, in the realm of the unknown. We must resolve to look deep within, at the unrealized potential of our unevolved selves. Materially, the unknown is one vast nothingness; potentially, it is all things. The unknown within us is where all dreams, thoughts and genius are frozen. The act of searching to make known the unknown triggers the brain. It allows us to incorporate, in ourselves, a greater consciousness, lighting the way for our dreams to enact themselves. Although we seem small in comparison with the whole universe, we are equipped with the greatest cosmic hookup ever created: the human brain. The brain - linked unconsciously to the infinite mind where the unknown resides - only facilitates thoughts, it does not create it. In struggling to find the answer to why we exist, we awaken the infinite mind to the unknown, making known the unknown, bringing meaning to our existence and commonness to all.

Consciousness | Dreams | Existence | Genius | Meaning | Mind | Survival | Universe | Wisdom |

D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence

What is pornography to one man is the laughter of genius to another... Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom... The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences... the world doesn't fear a new idea. It can pigeonhole any idea. It can't pigeon-hole a new experience.

Experience | Fear | Freedom | Genius | Laughter | Man | Men | Wisdom | World | Old |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Who makes quick use of the moment, is a genius of prudence.

Genius | Prudence | Prudence | Wisdom |

Alphonse de Lamartine, fully Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine

God has placed the genius of women in their hearts; because the works of this genius are always works of love.

Genius | God | Love | Wisdom |

Robert S. MacArthur

Men seldom die of hard work; activity is God's medicine. The highest genius is willingness and ability to do hard work. Any other conception of genius makes it a doubtful, if not a dangerous possession.

Ability | Genius | God | Men | Wisdom | Work |

Walter Lippmann

Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power; run against the grain of a nation's genius and see where you get with your laws.

Genius | Man | Power | Wisdom |

Abraham Lincoln

What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? ... Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us... Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Cunning | Destroy | Genius | God | Liberty | Love | Rights | Spirit | Wisdom | God |

William Mountford

The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into “the valley of the shadow of death.” But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.

Death | Faith | Genius | Glory | Life | Life | Light | Man | Wisdom |

V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett

The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.

Genius | Greed | Mind | Wisdom |

Charles B. Rogers

To give great attention to details is one mark of the genius - to putter with trifles is not.

Attention | Genius | Trifles | Wisdom |

Edwin Percy Whipple

Talent repeats; genius creates.

Genius | Wisdom |