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 Russell Lowell

The opening of the first grammar-school was the opening of the first trench against monopoly in Church and State.

Church | Wisdom |

George T. Lucas, fully George Walton Lucas, Jr.

Life cannot be explained. The only reason for life is life. There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason. One might think of life as a large organism, and we are but a small, symbiotic part of it. It is possible that on a spiritual level we are all connected in a way that continues beyond the comings and goings of various life forms. My best guess is that we share a collective spirit or life force or consciousness that encompasses and goes beyond individual life forms.

Consciousness | Force | Individual | Life | Life | Reason | Spirit | Wisdom | Think |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The military caste did not originate as a party of patriots, but as a party of bandits.

Wisdom |

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley

Evolution is not a force but a process, not a cause but a law.

Cause | Evolution | Force | Law | Wisdom |

Ralph S. Meadowcroft

The church of tomorrow must be universal. It cannot belong to a particular class, race or nation, but must transcend all such barriers so the brotherhood of man may be extended among us.

Brotherhood | Church | Man | Race | Tomorrow | Wisdom |

Vincenzo Monti

Abuse resembles a church procession; it always returns to the point from which it set out.

Abuse | Church | Wisdom |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I condemn Christianity, I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible charge any prosecutor has ever uttered. to me it is the extremist thinkable form of corruption, it has had the will to the ultimate corruption conceivably possible. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity, it has made of every value a disvalue, of every truth a lie, of every kind of integrity a vileness of soul. People still dare to talk to me of its ‘humanitarian’ blessings! To abolish any state of distress whatever has been profoundly inexpedient to it: it has lived on states of distress, it has created states of distress in order to externalize itself.

Blessings | Church | Corruption | Distress | Integrity | Nothing | Order | People | Soul | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Value |

Thomas E. O’Connor

The divisions and boundaries that we perceive based upon our five senses are, in effect, an illusion. It’s my belief that the meaning of life changes from day to day, second to second. I believe we’re here to learn that we’re part of a creative force - I would go so far as to call that force divine. We’re here to learn that we can create a world and that we have a choice in what we create, and that our world, if we choose, can be a heaven or hell.

Belief | Choice | Day | Force | Heaven | Hell | Illusion | Life | Life | Meaning | Wisdom | World | Learn |

Thomas Paine

Time makes more Converts than Reason...the adulterous connection of church and state.

Church | Reason | Time | Wisdom |

Matthew B Ridgway, fully Matthew Bunker Ridgway

In setting our military goals we need first of all to recognize that most of the world’s most basic woes do not lend themselves to purely military solutions.

Goals | Need | Wisdom | World |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

Even in a righteous cause force is a fearful thing; God only helps when men can help no more.

Cause | Force | God | Men | Wisdom | God |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Law being purely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that, in the exercise of the legislative power, the people cannot be represented; but in that of the executive power, which is only the force that is applied to giver the law effect, it both can and should be represented.

Force | Law | People | Power | Will | Wisdom |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.

Association | Force | Will | Wisdom | Association |

Igor Feodorovitch Stravinsky, or Fyodorovich

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

Dynamic | Force | Love | Order | Wisdom |

Charles P. Steinmetz, fully Charles Proteus Steinmetz, born Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz

Spiritual power is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest force in the development of men... Some day people will learn that material things do not bring happiness, and are of little use in making people creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of spiritual forces which have hardly been scratched.

Day | Force | History | Little | Men | People | Power | Study | Will | Wisdom | World | Learn |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

Everybody has enemies. to have an enemy is quite another thing. One must be somebody to have an enemy. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force.

Enemy | Force | Wisdom |