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

Samuel Pepys

Great fear of the sicknesses here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.

Business | Esteem | Music | Nature | Pleasure | Will | Business | Forgive |

Sidney Madwed

Every goal, every action, every thought, every feeling one experiences, whether it be consciously or unconsciously known, is an attempt to increase one's level of peace of mind.

Ability | Age | Appreciation | Experience | Life | Life | Music | People | Poetry | Rest | Time | Words | Appreciation | Child |

Arthur Conan Doyle, fully Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character.

Addiction | Danger | Music | Practice | Danger |

Isidore of Seville, fully Saint Isidore of Seville NULL

Learning unsupported by grace may get into our ears; it never reaches the heart. But when God's grace touches our innermost minds to bring understanding, his word which has been received by the ear sinks deep into the heart.

Music | Sound |

Isidore of Seville, fully Saint Isidore of Seville NULL

It is agreed that all sound which is the material of music is of three sorts. First is harmonica, which consists of vocal music; second is organica, which is formed from the breath; third is rhythmica, which receives its numbers from the beat of the fingers. For sound is produced either by the voice, coming through the throat; or by the breath, coming through the trumpet or tibia, for example; or by touch, as in the case of the cithara or anything else that gives a tuneful sound on being struck.

Guidance | Harmony | Music | Nothing | Universe | Guidance |

Stanley Kubrick

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

Music |

Stephan Jay Gould

If I could have those sixty seconds within Bradypus... would I not receive a plea for humans to pause, reassess - and above all, slow down?

Blame | Example | Individual | Literature | Men | Music | Past | Sympathy | Will | Understand |

Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

Suspect is like a rival is already cruel, but confess in detail see the love he inspires the woman you love is probably the ultimate pain.

Mind | Music | Soul | Vision |

Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

Emotions | Music | Smile | Soul |

Stephan Nachmanovitch

Narrows, your sense of time stops. You feel alert and alive; effort becomes effortless. You lose yourself in your own voice, in the handling of your tools, in your feeling for the rules. Absorbed in

Existence | Music | Time |

Stephen Sondheim, fully Stephen Joshua Sondheim

Music blows lyrics up very quickly, and suddenly they become more than art. They become pompous and they become self-conscious ... I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra. There's a lot to take in.

Music |

Stephen Sondheim, fully Stephen Joshua Sondheim

Oscar Hammerstein was a surrogate father during all those many days, and weeks and months when I didn't see my own father.

Music | Writing |

Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

This apparent hurly-burly and disorder turn out, after all, to reproduce real life with its fantastic ways more accurately than the most carefully studied out drama of manners. Every man is in himself all humanity, and if he writes what occurs to him he succeeds better than if he copies, with the help of a magnifying glass, objects placed outside of him.

Means | Music |

Thich Nhất Hanh

When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other, your mind will enjoy true peace, joy and lightness.

Music | Reality | Self |

Thomas Campbell

And mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew the world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue; whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore, but found not pity when it err'd no more. Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye th' unfeeling proud one looks, and passes condemn'd on penury's barren path to roam, scorn'd by the world, and left without a home.

Music |

Thomas Browne, fully Sir Thomas Browne

That which the sun doth not now see will be visible when the sun is out, and the stars are fallen from heaven.

Music | Order | Sound | Understanding |

Thomas Carlyle

Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.

Day | Life | Life | Music | World |

Thomas Carlyle

When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.

Music | Words |

Thomas Carlyle

Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men,--to the extent of the sixpence; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over him,--to the extent of sixpence.

Music |

Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

But was it not true that there were people, certain individuals, whom one found it impossible to picture dead, precisely because they were so vulgar? That was to say: they seemed so fit for life, so good at it, that they would never die, as if they were unworthy of the consecration of death.

Music | Afraid |