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

Benjamin Franklin

There was never a good war or a bad peace.

Good | Peace | War | Wisdom |

Henry George

The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock.

Wealth | Wisdom |

Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.

Man | War | Wisdom |

Francis J. Gable

The thing for which we prepare and which we earnestly expect usually comes upon us. Food is prepared to be eaten; clothing is made to be worn; munitions of war are produced to be used in warfare. Just as truly, preparations made for purposes of peace help to bring about the peaceful condition for which they are prepared.

Peace | War | Wisdom |

Henry Giles

Whenever I contemplate man in the actual world or the ideal, I am lost amidst the infinite multiformity of his life, but always end in wonder at this essential unity of his nature.

Life | Life | Man | Nature | Unity | Wisdom | Wonder | World |

Joseph Gerrald

Those who are versed in the history of their country, in the history of the human race, must know that rigorous state prosecutions have always preceded the era of convulsion; and this era, I fear, will be accelerated by the folly and madness of our rulers. If the people are discontented, the proper mode of quieting their discontent is, not by instituting rigorous and sanguinary prosecutions, but by redressing their wrongs and conciliating their affections. Courts of justice, indeed, may be called in to the aid of ministerial vengeance; but if once the purity of their proceedings is suspected, they will cease to be objects of reverence to the nation; they will degenerate into empty and expensive pageantry, and become the partial instruments of vexatious oppression. Whatever may become of me, my principles will last forever. Individuals may perish; but truth is eternal. The rude blasts of tyranny may blow from every quarter; but freedom is that hardy plant which will survive the tempest and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil.

Aid | Discontent | Era | Eternal | Folly | Freedom | History | Madness | People | Principles | Purity | Reverence | Truth | Tyranny | Will | Wisdom |

Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux

During war we imprison the rights of man.

Man | Rights | War | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It is not just as we take it, this mystical world of ours: life's field will yield as we make it.

Life | Life | Mystical | Will | Wisdom | World |

John Galsworthy

Nations like men, can be healthy and happy, though comparatively poor... Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally.

Happy | Health | Means | Men | Nations | Wealth | Wisdom | Trial |

John Galsworthy

Boys and girls should be taught to think first of others in material things; they should be infected with the wisdom to know that in making smooth the way lies the road to their own health and happiness.

Boys | Health | Wisdom | Think |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

We are so made, that we can only derive intense enjoyment from a contrast, and only very little from a state of things.

Contrast | Enjoyment | Little | Wisdom |

James Hadfield, fully Captain James Arthur Hadfield

It is one of the many paradoxes of psychology that the pursuit of happiness defeats its own purpose. We find happiness only when we do not directly seek it. An analogy will make this clear. In listening to music at a concert, we experience pleasurable feelings only so long as our attention is directed towards the music. But if in order to increase our happiness we give all our attention to our subjective feeling of happiness, it vanishes. Nature contrives to make it impossible for anyone to attain happiness by turning into himself.

Attention | Experience | Feelings | Listening | Music | Nature | Order | Psychology | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Oscar Handlin

Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.

History | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |

Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot

A state is a perfect body of free men, united together in order to enjoy common rights and advantages.

Body | Men | Order | Rights | Wisdom |

Stefano Guazzo

To have health of body, it is necessarie to have contentment of minde.

Body | Contentment | Health | Wisdom |