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

Wilhelm Röepke

There is no denying it: the collectivist state is rooted in the masses (to which professors can belong as well as workers) and it can only exist under conditions which, sociologically speaking, we term spiritual collectivization, that is, conditions of society for which precisely the extreme democratic development is an excellent preparation but which is the direct opposite of the liberal as well as the conservative-aristocratic ideal.

Freedom | Law | Life | Life | Man | Order | Society | Society |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

What I had been fell from me like dirty rags. The rags that fell from me were not only Communism. What fell was the whole web of the materialist modern mind—the luminous shroud which it has spun about the spirit of man, paralyzing in the name of rationalism the instinct of his soul for God, denying in the name of knowledge the reality of the soul and its birthright in that mystery on which mere knowledge falters and shatters at every step.

Death | Freedom | Light |

Wilhelm Reich

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Freedom |

Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney

I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination.

Culture | Duty | Freedom |

Wilhelm Röepke

One must further note that the economic order of a free society presupposes competition only in as far as that economy is a market economy dependent on the division of labor. Competition, therefore, is only one of the pillars on which such an order rests, while the other is self-sufficiency. We are, therefore, free to modify the competitive character of the economy in full harmony with the principles of our economic order, by enlarging the sphere of marketless self-sufficiency...­This is a new and important point illustrating the inestimable importance of sustenance farming and the `rurification' of the industrial proletariat.

Body | Freedom | Will |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

While there is life there is hope, has deeper meaning in reverse. While there is hope there is life. Hope comes first, life follows. Hope gives power to life. Hope rouses life to continue to expand, to grow, to reach out, to go on. Hope sees a light where there isn't any. Hope lights candles in millions of despairing hearts. Where would I be without hope?

Compassion | Freedom | Love | Order | Peace | People | Universe | Happiness |

Wilhelm Reich

Mistaking insolence for freedom has always been the hallmark of the slave.

Emotions | Freedom | Right |

Wilhelm Reich

Saw a film on cancer yesterday, shown by the English delegation. No doubt about it. I'm right. Migratory cancer cells are amoebic formations. They are produced from disintegrating tissue and thus demonstrate the law of tension and charge in its purest form - as does the orgastic convulsion. Now money is a must - cancer the main issue - in every respect, even political. It was a staggering experience. My intuition is good. I depend on it. Was absolutely driven to buy a microscope. The sight of the cancer cells was exactly as I had previously imagined it, had almost physically felt it would be. Cancer is an autoinfection of the body, of an organ. And researchers have no idea of what, hor, or where!!

Anxiety | Anxiety | Existence | Experience | Fighting | Freedom | Guilt | Knowledge | Love | Meaning | Means | Money | Organization | People | Power | Precision | Self-determination | Sin | Weapons | Will | Precision | Old |

Wilhelm Röepke

A healthy society, firmly resting on its own founda­tion, possesses a genuine `structure' with many interme­diate stages; it exhibits a necessarily `hierarchi­cal' composition...where each individual has the good fortune of knowing his position. Whereas such a society is based on the grouping functions of genuine communi­ties filled with the spirit of human fellowship (such as the neighbourhood, the family, the parish, the Church, the occupation), society has during the last hundred years moved further and further away from such an ideal and has disintegrated into a mass of abstract individuals who are solitary and isolated as human beings, but packed tightly like termites in their role of social functionaries.

Business | Circumstances | Competition | Ethics | Freedom | Law | Means | Policy | Business |

Wilhelm Reich

It is high time for the living to get tough, for toughness is indispensable in the struggle to safeguard and develop the life-force; this will not detract from their goodness, as long as they stand courageously by the truth. There is ground for hope in the fact that among millions of decent, hard-working people there are only a few plague-ridden individuals, who do untold harm by appealing to the dark, dangerous drives of the armored average man and mobilizing him for political murder. There is but one antidote to the average man's predisposition to plague: his own feelings for true life. The life force does not seek power but demands only to play its full and acknowledged part in human affairs. It manifests itself through love, work and knowledge.

Freedom | Influence | Tragedy | Work |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, straight and swift to my wounded I go, where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, to the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, to each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, an attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.

Freedom | Love | Problems |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Candor | Curiosity | Elegance | Freedom | Good | Novelty | Resentment | Self-esteem | Soul | Speech | Sympathy | Temper | Tenderness | Novelty |

Walter Brueggemann

Those who are living in anxiety and fear, most especially fear of scarcity, have no time or energy for the common good. Anxiety is no adequate basis for the common good; anxiety will cause the formulation of policy and of exploitative practices that are inimical to the common good, a systemic greediness that precludes the common good.

Church | Freedom | Hope | Merit | Tradition |

Walter Lippmann

For the newspaper is in all literalness the bible of democracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct. It is the only serious book most people read. It is the only book they read every day.

Absence | Freedom | Law | Liberty | Reason | Will |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

What is it that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life.

Freedom |

Walter Lippmann

He who captures the symbols by which public feeling is for the moment contained, controls by that much the approaches of public policy.

Freedom | Joy | Time |

Walter Brueggemann

The prophet speaks these words in direct contradiction to the facts on the ground. It is the work of poets to contradict the facts on the ground and to invite the listeners to embrace an alternative future.

Freedom | God | Tradition | God |

Walter Brueggemann

The hope filled language of prophecy in cutting through the royal despair and hopelessness is the language of amazement... the language of amazement is the ultimate energizer.

Battle | Cause | Challenge | Energy | Freedom | Language | Reality | Universe | Will |

Walter Lippmann

Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event.

Authority | Freedom | Indifference | Life | Life | Man | Men | Order | Rights | Spirit | Thought | World | Thought |

Walter Lippmann

When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.

Children | Freedom | Men | Learn |