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

Haile Selassie

He who would be a leader must pay the price in self-discipline and moral restraints. This details the correction and improvement of his personal character, the checking of passions and desires and an exemplary control of one's bodily needs and desires.

Work |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

Men |

Hans Reichenbach

The famous assertion by Einstein that the length of a rod depends on its velocity and on the chosen definition of simultaneity. ...is based on the fact that we do not measure the length of the rod, but its projection on a system at rest. How the length of the projection depends on the choice of simultaneity can be illustrated by reference to a photograph taken through a focal-plane shutter. Such a shutter... consists of a wide band with a horizontal slit, which slides down vertically. Different bands are photographed successively on the film. Moving objects are therefore strangely distorted; the wheels of a rapidly moving car for instance, appear to be slanted. The shape of the objects in the picture will evidently depend on the speed of the shutter. Similarly, the length of the moving segment depends on the definition of simultaneity. One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.

Men |

Hans Rosling

If you have democracy, people will vote for washing machines. They love them!

Work |

Italian Proverbs

Of this world each man has as much as he takes.

Life | Life | Men |

Italian Proverbs

The dying cannot leave their wisdom or experience to their heirs.

Art | Control | Work | Art |

Italian Proverbs

No good lawyer ever goes to court himself.

Ability | Balance | Technology | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Saying is one thing, doing another.

Goals | People | Pleasure | Progress | Success | Work |

Italian Proverbs

No sooner is the law made than its evasion is discovered.

Evil | Men |

Italian Proverbs

The ass does not know the worth of this tail till he has lost it.

Books | Character | Effort | Hope | Judgment | Will | Work | Realism |

Italian Proverbs

One who makes his bed must lie in it.

Determination | People | Will | Work |

Italian Proverbs

The devil is bad because he is old.

Ability | Age | Art | Control | Culture | Humor | Memory | Need | Time | Work | World | Art |

Italian Proverbs

The first blow is as good as two.

Courage | Mankind | Men | Peace | Strength | Tears | Will |

Italian Proverbs

The sun is still beautiful, though ready to set.

Wants | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Two women and a goose make a market.

Doubt | Irony | Life | Life | Means | Need | Plenty | Self | Superiority | Understanding | Work | World | Afraid |

Italian Proverbs

Who is in fear of every leaf must not go into the wood.

Men | Pain | Will |

Italian Proverbs

The same fire purifies gold and consumes straw.

Vision | Work |

Italian Proverbs

Who has no money must have no wishes.

Men | Worry |

Italian Proverbs

The world wags on with three things: doing, undoing, and pretending.

Ability | Adventure | Character | Comfort | Convictions | Daring | Ideas | Injustice | Injustice | Love | Man | Men | Qualities | Sound | Suffering | Talking | Time | Universe | Will | Witness | Blessed | Old | Winning |

Italian Proverbs

Very seldom does any good thing arise but there comes an ugly phantom of a caricature of it.

Birth | Childhood | Death | Irony | Paradox | Religion | Time | Work |