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

Feisal Abdul Rauf

Fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam.

Faith | Society | Society |

Faye Wattleton

The future and strength of the race is for women to be able to have kids when they want them and to love and provide them with the tools they'll need to get through a hostile world. The image of the black woman bearing child upon child against her will is the real threat to the race.

Majority | Obligation | Policy | Public | Strength |

Ezra Taft Benson

We are an overfed and undernourished nation digging an early grave with our teeth.

Faith |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, "Mamma, can I open the light?" She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art. It was a sort of metaphor, but she was not using it as ornamentation.

Love | Forgive |

Ezra Taft Benson

We must study and learn for ourselves the principles laid down in the Constitution which have preserved our freedoms for the last two hundred years. If we do not understand the role of government and how our rights are protected by the Constitution, we may accept programs or organizations that help erode our freedoms. An informed citizenry is the first line of defense against anarchy and tyranny.

Love | Respect | Study | Respect |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God - or Allah, in Arabic - and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we... bear witness that there is no God but God.

Faith | World |

Felix Adler

The family is the school of duties... founded on love.

Achievement | Eternal | Life | Life | Power | Regard | Sorrow | Strength | Unity | Weakness | Understand |

Ezra Taft Benson

Character is the one thing we make in this world and take with us into the next.

Eternity | Light | Love | Trials | Will |

Faith Popcorn, born Faith Plotkin

The trouble in corporate America is that too many people with too much power live in a box (their home), then travel the same road every day to another box (their office).

Good | Happy | Love | People | Trust |

Felix Adler

The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.

Criticism | Desire | Doubt | Faith | Improvement | Individual | Life | Life | Nations | Regard | Sacred | Intellect |

Ezra Taft Benson

Beloved youth, you will have your trials and temptations through which you must pass, but there are great moments of eternity which lie ahead. You have our love and our confidence. We pray that you will be prepared for the reins of leadership. We say to you, "Arise and shine forth" and be a light unto the world, a standard to others.

Health | History | Rights | Strength | System | Will |

Ezra Taft Benson

With independence won, another body of men assembled; and under the inspiration of heaven, they too drafted a document, probably the greatest instrument ever struck off at a given time by the mind of man: the Constitution of the United States.

Enough | Family | Heart | Love | Mission | People |

Ezra Taft Benson

When you are tempted to look elsewhere for greener pastures, just remember someone else is probably looking at yours. And if another pasture looks greener, perhaps it is getting better care and attention. Grass is always greener. . . where it is watered.

God | Lord | Love | Order | Will | God | Govern |

Felix Adler

The platform of an Ethical Society is itself the altar; the address must be the fire that burns thereon.

Contrast | Life | Life | Love | Mortal | Pain | Peace | Sense | Thought | Time | Understanding | Thought |

Felix Adler

Theories of what is true have their day. They come and go, leave their deposit in the common stock of knowledge, and are supplanted by other more convincing theories. The thinkers and investigators of the world are pledged to no special theory, but feel themselves free to search for the greater truth beyond the utmost limits of present knowledge. So likewise in the field of moral truth, it is our hope, that men in proportion as they grow more enlightened, will learn to hold their theories and their creeds more loosely, and will none the less, nay, rather all the more be devoted to the supreme end of practical righteousness to which all theories and creeds must be kept subservient. There are two purposes then which we have in view: To secure in the moral and religious life perfect intellectual liberty, and at the same time to secure concert in action. There shall be no shackles upon the mind, no fetters imposed in early youth which the growing man or woman may feel prevented from shaking off, no barrier set up which daring thought may not transcend. And on the other hand there shall be unity of effort, the unity that comes of an end supremely prized and loved, the unity of earnest, morally aspiring persons, engaged in the conflict with moral evil.

Aid | Cause | Culture | Evolution | Experience | Faith | Force | Humanity | Life | Life | Mankind | Morality | Nature | Optimism | Past | Peace | Pessimism | Power | Will |

Felix Adler

To understand the meaning of a great religious teacher we must find in our own life experiences somewhat akin to his. To selfish, unprincipled persons whose heart is wholly set on worldly ends, what meaning, for instance, can such utterances have as these? "You must become like little children if you would possess the kingdom of heaven;" "You must be willing to lose your life in order to save it;" "If you would be first you must consent to be last." To the worldly-minded such words convey no sense whatever; they are, in fact, rank absurdity.

Authority | Faith | Heart | Longing | Nature | Need | Religion |

Gustave Flaubert

Never had he beheld such a magnificent brown skin, so entrancing a figure, such dainty transparent fingers. He stood gazing in wonder at her work-basket as if it was something extraordinary. What was her name? Where did she live and what sort of life about did she lead? What was her past? He wanted to know what furniture she had in her bedroom, the dresses she wore, the people she knew. Even his physical desire for her gave way to a deeper yearning, a boundless, aching curiosity.

Absolute | Faith | Meaning | Relationship | Truth |

Gustave Flaubert

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.

Love | Safe |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Courtroom: A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds in favor of Judas.

Love |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

I read the other day a book defending the Ten Commandments. The best of all arguments for them, however, was omitted. It is that there are not forty of them.

Love | Will |