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

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

They knew that their anarchism was the product of a very high civilization, of a complex diversified culture, of a stable economy and a highly industrialized technology that could maintain high production and rapid transportation of goods. However vast the distances separating settlements, they held to the ideal of complex organicism.

Children | Despair | Evil | Happy | Pain | People | Praise | Treason | Trouble | Happiness |

Václav Havel

The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.

Desire | Dignity | Nothing | Office | Power | Truth |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at least he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.

Change | Evil | Good | Will | World |

V. S. Pritchett, fully Sir Victor Sawdon Pritchett

All writers - all people - have their stores of private and family legends which lie like a collection of half-forgotten, often violent toys on the floor of memory.

Commitment | Evil | Hell | Society | Society |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

The excuse usually those who are the misfortune of others is that they want their property.

Evil | Spirit |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

It is untrue to say a man has made his fortune when he is not capable of enjoying it.

Advice | Deference | Desire | Men |

Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues NULL

It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

Desire | Men | Pity | Talent |

Tryon Edwards

The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.

Evil |

Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

Evil | Man | Pain | Happiness |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

Let's use what we have learned and what we understand to universally save living beings in the world.

Evil |

Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.

Evil | Friend | Will |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

If you wish others to know about your good deeds, they are not truly good deeds.

Desire | Following |

Tryon Edwards

We never reach our ideals, whether of mental or moral improvement, but the thought of them shows us our deficiencies, and spurs us on to higher and better things.

Evil |

Tryon Edwards

The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong.-We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter.

Choice | Evil | Nature | Power |

Tryon Edwards

To possess money is very well; it may be a most valuable servant; to be possessed by it, is to be possessed by a devil, and one of the meanest and worst kind of devils.

Character | Crime | Murder | Murder |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

Buddha is one who possesses great wisdom. We, on the other hand, possess great stupidity. Therefore, we should study the Buddha. We should study the great wisdom of the Buddha. We should take the mind of the Buddha as our own mind. We should take the vows of the Buddha as our own vows. In every moment we should be studying and practicing the four immeasurable minds of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and even-mindedness. In every moment we should be cultivating the Dharma gateway of "being able to endure that which is difficult to endure and being able to practice that which is difficult to practice."

Desire | Fame |

Tryon Edwards

Profanity is both an unreasonable and an unmanly sin, a violation alike of good taste and good morals; an offence against both man and God. - Some sins are productive of temporary profit or pleasure; but profaneness is productive of nothing unless it be shame on earth, and damnation in hell. It is the most gratuitous of all kinds of wickedness - a sort of pepper-corn acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the devil over those who indulge it.

Better | Evil |

Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

Evil | Good | Purity |

Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Enemy | Evil |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

We should know that nothing in the world comes easily; how can we expect a reward when we haven't put in the work?

Cause | Evil | People | Will | Afraid |