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

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.

Age | History | Knowing | Men | Past | Present | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Digestion exists for health, and health exists for life, and life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.

Health | Life | Life | Love | Music | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The trouble about always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

Body | Health | Mind | Wisdom | Trouble |

Marion LeRoy Burton

Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, and a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.

Body | Diet | Excess | Gluttony | Health | Wisdom |

Samuel Butler

The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

Death | History | Opinion | Public | Weakness | Wisdom | World |

John Caldwell Calhoun

If the government should be taught that the highest wisdom of a state is a wise and masterly inactivity, an invaluable blessing will be conferred.

Government | Inactivity | Will | Wisdom | Wise | Government |

Erwin Dain Canham

American society is characterized by spontaneous, voluntary, non-governmental cooperation of citizens in their local communities. It is brotherhood in actin.

Brotherhood | Cooperation | Society | Wisdom | Society |

William Ellery Channing

What distinguishes war is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man.

Cruelty | Injustice | Injustice | Man | Treachery | War | Wisdom |

George Barrell Cheever

For health and the constant enjoyment of life, give me a keen and ever present sense of humor; it is the next best thing to an abiding faith in providence.

Enjoyment | Faith | Health | Humor | Life | Life | Present | Providence | Sense | Wisdom |

Richard Cecil

I extend the circle of real religion very widely. Many men fear God, and love God, and have sincere desire to serve him, whose views of religious truth are very imperfect, and in some points utterly false. But may not many such persons have a state of heart acceptable before God?

Desire | Fear | God | Heart | Love | Men | Religion | Truth | Wisdom |

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches

For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available: either by the absolute indifference of your fellow-men in peace-time, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out.

Absolute | Indifference | Men | Passion | Peace | Time | War | Wisdom | World |

William Ellery Channing

The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.

Evil | Fraud | Little | Lust | Man | Perfidy | Rage | War | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.

Ignorance | Order | Pleasure | Smile | Wisdom |

James Burgh

No state can be more destitute than that of a person, who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind.

Mind | Sense | Wisdom |

Geoffrey Chaucer

And all your dreams and other such like folly, to deep oblivion let them be consigned; for they arise but from your melancholy, by which your health is being undermined. A straw for all the meaning you can find in dreams! They aren’t worth a hill of beans, for no one knows what dreaming really means.

Dreams | Folly | Health | Meaning | Means | Melancholy | Oblivion | Wisdom | Worth |

Boake Carter

In time of war the first casualty is truth.

Time | Truth | War | Wisdom |