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

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

But when she looked for Gerald there seemed too much of him. He was a wood in which she counted from tree to tree – all hers – and knew the boundary wall right round. But how to measure this unaccountable darkness between the trees, this living silence? So she turned back to Mr. Montmorency, adding a paragraph.

World |

Elif Safak

Sam know why - I said with a smile. - Spiritual development covers our entire consciousness and not its individual countries. Rule number thirty-two: Between you and God should not stand anything. Neither the imams or priests or rabbis or other guardians of morality or religious leadership. Neither spiritual teachers, or even faith. Believe in its values ​​and rules, but not impose them on others never. If you repeatedly break the hearts of the people, whatever religious duty to perform, it is useless. Beware of any idolatry idols because clouding your vision. Let us be your guide and only God. Learn the truth, my friend, but be careful not to become a fetish truths.

Life | Life | Love | Soul | World |

Albert Einstein

My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God.

Admiration | God | Science | World | God |

William Shakespeare

Since I was man, such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry th' affliction nor the fear.

Man | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World | Think |

William Shakespeare

Rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach to digest his words, with better appetite.

Action | Cause | Grace | Little | World | Blessed |

William Shakespeare

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all.

Tears | World | Blessed |

William Shakespeare

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Malvalio at II, v)

World | Think |

William Shakespeare

So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench Are from their hives and houses driven away. They called us, for our fierceness, English dogs; Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.

Age | Better | Day | Peace | Wealth | Will | World |

William Shakespeare

See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

God | Grace | World | God |

William Shakespeare

Shall remain! Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you His absolute 'shall'? Coriolanus (Coriolanus at III, i)

Awe | Man | World | Think |

William Shakespeare

Some of us will smart for it.

World |

William Shakespeare

So happy be the issue, brother England, of this good day and of this gracious meeting.

World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I am a better person when I have less on my plate.

Thought | World | Thought |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I lose count of how many bottles of Sardinian wine we drink before Deborah introduces to the table the suggestion that we follow a nice American custom here tonight by joining hands-and each in turn-saying what we are most grateful for. In three languages, then, this montage of gratitude comes forth, one testimony at a time.

Eternal | Ideas | Life | Life | Tomorrow | World | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

He told me that one of the reasons people are so unhappy is they don't talk to themselves. He said you have to keep a conversation going with yourself throughout your life to see how you're doing, to keep your focus, to remain your own friend. He told me that he talked to himself all the time, and that it helped him to grow stronger and better every day.

Balance | Earth | Will | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on the water.

God | Patience | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | God |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Given that life is so short, do I really want to spend one-ninetieth of my remaining days on earth reading Edward Gibbon?

Cause | Happy | Observation | Quiet | Statistics | Work | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.

Beauty | Excellence | Pleasure | World | Excellence | Beauty |

William Shakespeare

Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, Doth burn the heart to cinders, where it is. Titus Andronicus (Marcus at II, iv)

Honor | Nothing | World |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Of course, we all inevitably work too hard, then we get burned out and have to spend the whole weekend in our pajamas, eating cereal straight out of the box and staring at the TV in a mild coma (which is the opposite of working, yes, but not exactly the same thing as pleasure).

Day | Life | Life | World |