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

Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.

Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |

William Wordsworth

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

Harmony | Joy | Life | Life | Power | Quiet | Wisdom |

Greta Woodrew, Pseud. for Greta Andron Smolowe

The body is a servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind. There is a mind/body connection that is powerful. As a healer, I am convinced disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Sick thoughts express themselves through a sickly body. Thoughts of fear can kill a man. People who live in fear of disease are most likely the very people who get the disease. Conversely, if you would improve your body, guard your mind.

Body | Circumstances | Disease | Fear | Health | Kill | Man | Mind | People | Thought | Wisdom |

Kenneth Boulding, fully Kenneth Ewart Boulding

There are three basic types of human transactions: (1) the threat system – “Give it to me or I’ll kill you” or today’s more sophisticated version: “How much will you pay me to stop harming or annoying you?”… (2) the exchange system, the narrow waveband of market transactions with which economics concerns itself, and (3) the integrative system, i.e., the transactions based on the love, sharing, and altruism of which human beings are capable in spite of the denial of these phenomena in economic theory.

Altruism | Economics | Kill | Love | Phenomena | System | Will |

Medgar Evers, fully Medgar Wiley Evers

You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.

Kill | Man |

Sidney Greenberg

Religion is a quiet dimension of daily living; it is not a spectacular explosion.

Quiet | Religion |

William Godwin

A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural thing.

Abstract | Business | Kill | Man | Martyrs | Men | Question | War | Business |

Herman Hesse

God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to a new life.

Despair | God | Kill | Life | Life | Order |

Abraham Lincoln

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves.

Difficulty | Past | Present | Quiet | Think |

James A. Michener, fully James Albert Michener

Self-respect cannot be purchased. It is never for sale. It cannot be fabricated out of public relations. It comes to us when we are alone, in quiet moments, in quiet places, when we suddenly realize that knowing the good, we have gone for the great.

Good | Knowing | Public | Quiet | Respect | Self |

Hans Margolius

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.

Mind | Perception | Quiet | World |

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

We kill time; time buries us.

Kill | Time |

William Penn

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship. If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

Absence | Comfort | Death | Kill | Love | Society | World | Friendship | Society | Friends |

William Penn

Death cannot kill what never dies.

Death | Kill |

William Penn

Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship. If Absence be not Death, neither is it theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as Friends do the Seas; they live in one another still.

Absence | Death | Kill | Love | World | Friends |

Iris Murdoch, aka Dame Jean Iris Murdoch

It was so important to think quiet loving thought about people in idle moments, especially perhaps about the dead, who being substanceless so desperately need our thoughts.

Important | Need | People | Quiet | Thought | Think | Thought |

Tamura Ryūichi

To make a single poem we need to kill. We must kill many things. Shoot, murder, poison many of the things we love.

Kill | Love | Murder | Need | Poem |

Wilfred Cantwell Smith

Faith, then, is a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service; a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive; and face others with cheerful charity.

Charity | Confidence | Courage | Faith | Joy | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Meaning | Men | Opportunity | Quiet | Serenity | Service | Sorrow | Universe | World |

Robert Taber

The flea bites, hops, and bites, again, nimbly avoiding the foot that would crush him. He does not seek to kill his enemy at a blow, but to bleed him and feed on him, to plague and bedevil him, to keep him from resting and to destroy his nerve and his morale.

Destroy | Enemy | Kill |