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

George Bernard Shaw

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

Human race | Patriotism | Quiet | Race | World |

George Santayana

Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.

Adventure | Age | Better | Nothing | Old age | Quiet | Spirit | Turmoil | Old |

Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Desperation | Men | Quiet | Resignation |

John Lyly or Lilly or Lylie

Nature hath giuen no man a country, no more than she hath a house or lands... and the same Moone shined, whereby he noted that euery place was a country to a wise man, and al parts a pallace to a quiet mind.

Man | Mind | Nature | Quiet | Wise |

John Ruskin

Remember always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life, the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim.

Excellence | Life | Life | Quiet | Strength | Success | Will | Words |

John Ruskin

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

Books | Life | Life | Quiet | Reading | Waste |

Joseph Addison

One of the most important, but one of the most difficult things to a powerful mind is to be its own master; a pond may lay quiet in a plain, but a lake wants mountains to compass and hold it in.

Important | Mind | Quiet | Wants |

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

A society – the product of socialization – is made of spontaneous nurturing and love, while culture can be quiet hate, which can lead, sooner or later, to a child’s subtle or flagrant rebellion.

Culture | Hate | Love | Quiet | Rebellion | Society | Society |

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

No media project succeeds based on “good news only” because good news does not trigger our alert system. Anything good indicates a safe space, the quiet background against which events can play out. The enculturated mind is cued to respond to the negative as a point of focus, which largely screens out or ignores a quiet stable base, and, because it sharpens and maintains our alert awareness, we actually begin to look for the negative.

Awareness | Events | Focus | Good | Mind | News | Play | Quiet | Safe | Space | System |

Kahlil Gibran

Love joins our present with the past and the future... Love is a divine knowledge that enables men to see as much as the gods... Love is a blinding mist that keeps the soul from discerning the secret of existence, so that the heart sees only trembling phantoms of desire among the hills, and hears only echoes of cries from voiceless valleys... Love is the rest of the body in the quiet of the grave, the tranquillity of the soul in the depth of Eternity... And so, all who passed spoke of Love as the image of their hopes and frustrations, leaving it a mystery as before.

Body | Desire | Eternity | Existence | Future | Grave | Heart | Knowledge | Love | Men | Mystery | Past | Present | Quiet | Rest | Soul | Tranquility |

Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead as to its own. Such an one can do no deed however small but it is clothed with something of God’s power and authority.

Authority | God | Mind | Nothing | Power | Quiet | Self | Will | God |

Michael S. Josephson

Happiness is a kind of emotional resting place of quiet satisfaction with one's life.

Life | Life | Quiet |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I know of no teachers so powerful and persuasive as the little army of specialists. They carry no banners, they beat no drums; but where they are men learn that bustle and push are not the equals of quiet genius and serene mastery.

Genius | Little | Men | Quiet | Learn |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A good indignation brings out all one's powers.

Good | Indignation |

Robert Burton

What physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favor, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience? A quiet mind cureth all.

Authority | Conscience | Mind | Quiet | Wealth |

Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh

What thou givest after thy death, remember that thou givest it to a stranger, and most times to an enemy; for he that shall marry thy wife will despise thee, thy memory and thine, and shall possess the quiet of thy labors, the fruit which thou hast planted, enjoy thy love, and spend with joy and ease what thou hast spared and gotten with care and travail.

Care | Death | Despise | Enemy | Joy | Love | Memory | Quiet | Wife | Will |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

In the relation of master to slave the master does not make a point of the need that he has for the other; he has in his grasp the power of satisfying this need through his own action; whereas the slaver, in his dependent condition, his hope and fear, is quiet conscious of the need he has for his master. Even if the need is at bottom equally urgent for both, it always works in favor of the oppressor and against the oppressed.

Action | Fear | Hope | Need | Power | Quiet |

Mahabharata or The Mahabharata NULL

One should forgive, under any injury. It hath been said that the continuation of the species is due to man’s being forgiving. Forgiveness is holiness; by forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is quiet of mind. Forgiveness and gentleness are the qualities of the Self-possessed. They represent eternal virtue.

Eternal | Forgiveness | Gentleness | Man | Mind | Qualities | Quiet | Sacrifice | Self | Universe | Virtue | Virtue | Forgiveness |

Thomas Fuller

Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind.

Life | Life | Mankind | Mind | Quiet | Rule | World |

William Shakespeare

A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Wolsey at III, ii)

Conscience | Life | Life | Peace | Quiet |