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

Robert Burton

A deeply felt sense of purpose is as necessary as hunger and thirst--all are universally necessary for survival and homeostasis.

Hunger | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Survival |

Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . . It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard. "You're sick of the game!" Well, now that’s a shame. You're young and you're brave and you're bright. "You've had a raw deal!" I know — but don't squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. It’s the plugging away that will win you the day, So don't be a piker, old pard! Just draw on your grit, it’s so easy to quit. It’s the keeping-your chin-up that’s hard. It’s easy to cry that you're beaten — and die; It’s easy to crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight — Why that’s the best game of them all! And though you come out of each gruelling bout, All broken and battered and scarred, Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die, It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.

Death | Hunger | Looks | Man | Will | Old |

Margaret Fuller, fully Sara Margaret Fuller, Marchese Ossoli

Thoughts which come at a call Are no better than if they came not at all Neither flower nor fruit, Yielding no root For plant, shrub, or tree. I prize thy gentle heart, Free from ambition, falsehood, or art, And thy good mind, Daily refined, By pure desire To fan the heaven-seeking fire.

Day | Destiny | Earth | Eternal | God | Hunger | Joy | Life | Life | Light | Love | Man | Nature | Need | Nothing | Prayer | Thought | Truth | Wealth | Wishes | God | Old | Think | Thought |

Silvio Pellico

Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.

Adventure | Ambition | Circumstances | Contentment | Debt | Dignity | God | Hunger | Life | Life | Mediocrity | Men | Mortal | Nobility | Poverty | Society | Soul | Wealth | World | Ambition | Society | God |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

The West will not contain communism, it will transcend communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.

Hunger | Society | War | Society |

Rowland Hill

There is a perpetual frost in the pockets of some rich people; as soon as they put their hands into them, they are frozen so they cannot draw out their purses.—Had I my way, I would hang all misers; but reversing the common mode, I would hang them up by the heels, that their money might run out of their pockets.

Hunger |

Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

As regards ... what is independent of our bodily makeup we are all individually made; each one of us is his or her own self, an individual. With the exception of the far less important differences that show up as racial or national differences ... but which are (if you have a sense for this you cannot help noticing it) mere trifles by comparison with differences in individual gifts and skills: with the exception of these we are all equal as human beings ... as regards our external, physical humanity. We are equal as human beings, here in the physical world, specifically in that we all have the same human form and all manifest a human countenance. The fact that we all bear a human countenance and encounter one another as external, physical human beings... this makes us equal on this footing. We differ from one another in our individual gifts which, however, belong to our inner nature.

Hunger | Nature | Need |

Rudyard Kipling

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid - Light of my tents, be fleet - Morning awaits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet.

Hunger | Lust | Old |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star.

Hunger |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

Better to have fewer wants than greater riches to supply increasing wants.

Beauty | Force | Hunger | Beauty |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

You can also offer your prayers, obedience, and endurance of dryness to Our Lord, for the good of other souls, and then you have practiced intercession. Never mind if it all seems for the time very second-hand. The less you get out of it, the nearer it approaches to being something worth offering; and the humiliation of not being able to feel as devout as we want to be, is excellent for most of us. Use vocal prayer... very slowly, trying to realize the meaning with which it is charged and remember that... you are only a unit in the Chorus of the Church, so that the others will make good the shortcomings you cannot help.

Hunger | Peace |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

Let no one flatter himself of himself he is Satan. Let man take sin, which is his own, and leave righteousness with God.

Beauty | Existence | Hunger | Peace | World | Beauty | Old |

Saint Catherine of Siena NULL

I acknowledge and do not deny that you love me before I existed, and that you love me unspeakably much, as one gone mad over your creature.

Hunger | Kill |

Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL

There is no hardship more oppressive to the soul than slander, whether one is slandered in his faith or in his conduct. And no one can disdain it except the one who like Susanna looks to God who alone can rescue in need, as he rescued her, and to reassure men, as he did in her case, and to encourage the soul with hope.

Body | Hunger | Money | Right | Soul | World | Loss |

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

Hence, every human law has the quality of the very nature of the law, in so far as is derived from the law of nature. If, however, disagree in any way from the natural law, shall be the law no longer, but the corruption of law.

Hunger |

Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

Hunger | Purpose | Purpose |

Sam Keen

The sacred is discovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Hunger | Important | Law | Love | Means | People | Pleasure | Possessions | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Survival | Will | Child | Learn |

Simone Weil

It is because of my wretchedness that I am I. It is on account of the wretchedness of the universe that, in a sense, God is I (that is to say a person).

Chance | Eternal | Hunger | Obligation |

Simone Weil

The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul.

Absence | Evil | Extreme | Fear | Hunger | Initiative | Need | Public | Risk | Security | Soul |

Simone Weil

The human soul has need of some solitude and privacy and also of some social life.

Absence | Evil | Fear | Hunger | Need | Risk | Security | Soul |