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

Elizabeth Gilbert

There is a reason they call God a presence - because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.

Cause | Control | Grief | Love |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

Discrimination still exists. Some people feel that their own beliefs are being threatened. Some are unhappy about unfamiliar cultures. They all need to be reassured that there is so much to be gained by reaching out to others; that diversity is indeed a strength and not a threat.

Grief | Nothing | Pain | Price |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

I have been aware all the time did my peoples, spread far and wide Throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which i have now finished with dedicated search solemnity.

Chance | Gratitude | Grief | Hope | Tomorrow | World |

Emil M. Cioran

Tolerance - the function of an extinguished ardor - tolerance cannot seduce the young.

Fame |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

I cannot live with you, it would be life, and life is over there behind the shelf.

Grief | Joy | Smile |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I 'never told my love' vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

Art | Change | Danger | Darkness | Doubt | Dreams | Grief | Guile | Hate | Heart | Hope | Liberty | Life | Life | Pain | Quiet | Reason | Suffering | Suspicion | Thankfulness | Trust | Truth | World | Danger | Art |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

For that mist may break when the sun is high and this soul forget its sorrow and the rose ray of the closing day may promise a brighter ‘morrow.

Corruption | Enough | Experience | Grief | Hope | Mankind | Mind | Mortal | Trust | Truth | Youth | Youth | Think |

Emma Goldman

Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels, said Dr. Samuel Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.

Duty | Fortune | Kill | Little | Superiority |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

Look on the grave where thou must sleep thy last, and strongest foe; it is endurance not to weep, if that repose seem woe.

Grief |

Emma Goldman

Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell, reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment.

Arrogance | Belief | Duty | Fortune | Infancy | Kill | Little | Lord | Mind | Patriotism | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Superiority | Child |

Emmet Fox

The conscious discovery by you that you have this Power within you, and your determination to make use of it, is the birth of the child. And it is easy to see how very apt the symbol is, for the infant that is born in consciousness is just such a weak, feeble entity as any new-born child, and it calls for the same careful nursing and guarding that any infant does in its earliest days. After a time, however, as the weeks go by, the child grows stronger and bigger, until a time comes when it can well take care of itself; and then it grows and grows in wisdom and stature until, no longer leaning on the mother’s care, the child, now arrived at man’s estate, turns the tables, and repays its debt by taking over the care of its mother. So your ability to contact the mystic Power within yourself, frail and feeble at first, will gradually develop until you find yourself permitting that Power to take your whole life into its care.

Battle | Business | Cause | Change | Character | Day | Destiny | Fame | God | Grief | Hero | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mercy | Need | Obscurity | Obscurity | Problems | Qualities | Success | Trifles | Weakness | Wealth | Will | Loss | Business | God |

Emmet Fox

Whatever you experience in your life is really but the out-picturing of your own thoughts and beliefs. Now, you can change these thoughts and beliefs, and then the outer picture must change too. The outer picture cannot change until you change your thought. Your real heartfelt conviction is what you out-picture or demonstrate, not your mere pious opinions or formal assents. Convictions cannot be adopted arbitrarily just because you want a healing. They are built up by the thoughts you think and the feelings you entertain day after day as you go through life. So, it is your habitual mental conduct that weaves the pattern of your destiny for you, and is not this just as it should be? So no one else can keep you out of your kingdom - or put you into it either. The story of your life is really the story of the relations between yourself and God.

Better | Change | Example | Experience | Fortune | Harmony | Man | Nature | People | Problems | Search | Thinking | Time | Will | World | Trouble |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

Don't tell me about the scientific advances of the twentieth century. So men are planning a trip to the moon. So computers run every large industry in America. So body organs are being transplanted like perennials. Big deal! You show me a washer that will launder a pair of socks and return them to you as a pair, and I'll light a firecracker.

Fame |

Eudora Welty

Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.

Experience | Grief | Survival | Writing |

Eugene Peterson

Instead of asking, “Why does this happen Why do I feel left in the lurch” we can ask “How does it happen that there are people who sing with such confidence, ‘God’s strong name is our help’”

Competence | God | Growth | Habit | Knowing | Knowledge | Love | People | Understanding | God |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

There is evidence that the faculty of reflection will appear as soon as our senses begin to develop, and it is equally true that we have the use of the senses from an early age, just because at an early age we began to reflect.

Distinguish | Error | Fame | Impression | Mistake | Perception |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

The dissimilarity that arose between poetic style and common language, opened a middle way from which eloquence derived its origin, and from which it sometimes deviated to draw near to the style of poetry, and sometimes to resemble common conversation. From the latter it differs only as it rejects all sorts of expressions that have not a sufficient dignity, and from the former only because it is not subject to the same measure, and according to the different character of languages, it is not allowed some particular figures and phrases which are admitted in poetry. In other respects these two arts are sometimes confounded in such a manner, that it.is no longer possible to distinguish them.

Fame |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

What we have been saying in regard to imagination and memory, must be applied to contemplation, according as it is referred to either. If it be made to consist in retaining the perceptions; before the use of instituted signs it has only a habit which does not depend on us: but it has none at all, if it be made to consist in preserving the signs themselves.

Design | Fame | Knowledge | Mankind | Memory | Music | Poetry | Religion | Time | Wants |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.

Chance | Fame |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

I do not oppose the insane asylum — but I abhor and condemn the cutthroat system that robs man of his reason, drives him to insanity and makes the lunatic asylum an indispensable adjunct to every civilized community.

Enough | Fortune | Man | Men | Nothing | Order | Work |