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

James Ferrier, fully James Frederick Ferrier

Every question in philosophy is the mask of another question; and all these masking and masked questions require to be removed and laid aside, until the ultimate but truly first question has been reached. Then, but not till them, it is possible to decipher and resolve the outside mask, and all those below it, which come before us in the first instance.

Philosophy | Question | Wisdom |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Wars can never cease so long as nations live under such widely differing conditions, so long as the value of individual life is in each nation so variously computed, and so long as the animosities which divide them represent such powerful instinctual forces in the mind.

Individual | Life | Life | Mind | Nations | Wisdom | Value |

Léon Gambetta

History is constantly repeating itself, making only such changes of programme as the growth of nations and centuries requires.

Growth | History | Nations | Wisdom |

George Washington Goethals

Knowledge of our duties is the most essential part of the philosophy of life. If you escape duty you avoid action. The world demands results.

Action | Duty | Knowledge | Life | Life | Philosophy | Wisdom | World |

R. B. Cunninghame Graham, fully Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham

Nothing can stand against success and yet keep fresh. Nations as well as individuals feel its vulgarizing power.

Nations | Nothing | Power | Success | Wisdom |

A. C. Harwood

There is one type of feeling which is above all important to foster in childhood. Children have naturally an abundant faculty for wonder and reverence. There are so many books, so many radio and television hours, so many encyclopedias and, alas, so many teachers whose aim is to import knowledge quickly and easily without any element of that faculty which the Greeks said was the beginning of philosophy – Wonder. It is strange that an age which has discovered so many marvels in the universe should be so conspicuously lacking in the sense of wonder.

Age | Beginning | Books | Childhood | Children | Important | Knowledge | Philosophy | Reverence | Sense | Television | Universe | Wisdom | Wonder |

Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

Nothing is constant but change! All existence is a perpetual flux of "being and becoming"! That is the broad lesson of the evolution of the world... The belief in the freedom of the will is inconsistent with the truth of evolution. Modern philosophy shows clearly that the will is never really free in man or animal, but determined by the organization of the brain; and that in turn acquires its individual character by the laws of heredity and the influence of environment.

Belief | Change | Character | Evolution | Existence | Freedom | Heredity | Individual | Influence | Lesson | Man | Nothing | Organization | Philosophy | Truth | Will | Wisdom | World |

Rolf Hochhuth

Men may be linked by friendship. Nations are linked only by interests.

Men | Nations | Wisdom |

William Ralph Inge

The nations which have put mankind most in their debt have been small states - Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.

Debt | Mankind | Nations | Wisdom |

David Hume

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

Philosophy | Religion | Wisdom |

Ted Kennedy, fully Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy

Based on some estimates, guns are statistically like rats. They outnumber our population. Not surprisingly, our output of ammunition for civilian firearms almost staggers the imagination. American industry outdoes all other nations in the production of bullets. Nearly 5 billion rounds of ammunition flow through the marketplace each year. that is enough, laid end to end, to stretch a bandoleer of ammunition three times around the equator. All of those bullets could not only wipe out the world’s entire human population, but they could decimate practically most of the world’s species of wildlife.

Enough | Imagination | Industry | Nations | Wisdom | World |

William James

The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world formula or that world formula be the true one.

Life | Life | Philosophy | Will | Wisdom | World |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death.

Death | Endurance | Ideas | Man | Nations | Wisdom |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

The nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Man | Men | Nations | Rights | Wisdom |

Imre Lakatos

Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.

History | Philosophy | Science | Wisdom |

Stanley Kubrick

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

Nations | Wisdom |

Robert E. Lyon

Modern man seems to be afraid of silence. We are conditioned by radio and television on which every minute must be filled with talking, or some kind of sound. We are stimulated by the American philosophy of keeping on the move all the time - busy, busy, busy. This tends to make us shallow. A person's life can be deepened tremendously by periods of silence, used in the constructive ways of meditation and prayer. Great personalities have spent much time in the silence of life.

Life | Life | Man | Meditation | Philosophy | Prayer | Silence | Sound | Talking | Television | Time | Wisdom | Afraid |

Compton Mackenzie, fully Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie

Take two workers in an organization. One limits his giving by wages he is paid. He insists on being paid instantly for what he does. That shows he is a man of limited imagination and intelligence. The other is a natural giver. His philosophy of life compels him to make himself useful. He knows that if he takes care of other people's problems they will be forced to take care of him to protect their own interests. The more a man gives of himself to his work, the more he will get out of it, both in wages and satisfaction.

Care | Giving | Imagination | Intelligence | Life | Life | Man | Organization | People | Philosophy | Problems | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities. But if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not in the same manner unite individuals. We see that in countries where the people move only by the spirit of commerce, they make a traffic of all the humane, all the moral virtues; the most trifling things, those which humanity would demand, are there done, or there given, only for money.

Commerce | Humanity | Money | Nations | Peace | People | Spirit | Wisdom | Commerce |