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

Fannie Hurst

Few enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them.

Worth |

Ezra Taft Benson

The Founding Fathers understood the principle that “righteousness exalteth a nation”, and helped to bring about one of the greatest systems ever used to govern men. But unless we continue to seek righteousness and preserve the liberties entrusted to us, we shall lose the blessings of heaven. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The price of freedom is also to live in accordance with the commandments of God. The early Founding Fathers thanked the Lord for His intervention in their behalf. They saw His hand in their victories in battle and believed strongly that He watched over them.

Blessings | Dignity | Freedom | Ideals | Individual | Mankind | Mind | Nations | People | Principles | Respect | Respect |

Feisal Abdul Rauf

The fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith: that there is a creator, whom we call God - or Allah, in Arabic - and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we... bear witness that there is no God but God.

Faith | World |

Felix Adler

It is the business of the preacher, not only to state moral truths, but to inspire his hearers with a realizing sense of their value, and to awaken in them the desire to act accordingly. He can do this only by putting his own purpose as a yeast into their hearts. The influence of the right sort of preachers cannot be spared. The human race is not yet so far advanced that it can dispense with the impulses that come from men of more than average intensity of moral energy. Let us produce, through the efficacy of a better moral life and of a deeper moral experience, a surer faith in the ultimate victory of the good.

Ends | Force | Good | Nature | Progress | Will | Work | World |

Ezra Taft Benson

You must keep your honor. You cannot yet speak officially for the country, but you can become informed. You can speak your mind. You may think you can do little about the national economy or the actions of our government and the moral weakness all about us, but we must all remember that the Lord has placed great responsibilities upon the elders of Israel in the preservation of our Constitution.

Body | Inspiration | Men | Mind | Time |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

Wrong |

Felix Adler

Here are two kinds of light, the light on the hither side of the darkness and the light beyond the darkness. We must press on through the darkness and the terror of it if we would reach the holier light beyond. We are here — no matter who put us here, or how we came here — to fulfill a task. We cannot afford to go of our own volition until the last item of our duty is discharged.

Aims | Deeds | Fate | Good | Question | Will | World | Fate | Deeds |

Ezra Taft Benson

Be cheerful in all that you do. Live joyfully. Live happily. Live enthusiastically, knowing that God does not dwell in gloom and melancholy, but in light and love.

Confidence | Life | Life | Light | World |

Felix Adler

We have already transgressed the limit of safety, and the present disorders of our time are but precursors of other and imminent dangers. The rudder of our ship has ceased to move obedient to the helm. We are drifting on the seething tide of business, each one absorbed in holding his own in the giddy race of competition, each one engrossed in immediate cares and seldom disturbed by thoughts of larger concerns and ampler interests. Even our domestic life has lost much of its former warmth and geniality.

Change | World |

Felix Adler

Theologians often say that faith must come first, and that morality must be deduced from faith. We say that morality must come first, and faith, to those whose nature fits them to entertain it, will come out of the experience of a deepened moral life as its richest, choicest fruit. Precisely because moral culture is the aim, we cannot be content merely to lift the mass of mankind above the grosser forms of evil. We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the past has known. To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic communities is our aim. We seek to come into touch with the ultimate power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.

Children | Future | Happy | Light | Past | Time | Truth | Will | Work | World |

Felix Adler

There is a city to be built, the plan of which we carry in our heads, in our hearts. Countless generations have already toiled at the building of it. The effort to aid in completing it, with us, takes the place of prayer. In this sense we say, "Laborare est orare."

Daring | Life | Life | Man | Men | Present | Righteousness | Search | Theories | Thinkers | Thought | Time | Truth | Unity | Will | Woman | World | Youth | Youth | Learn | Thought |

Gustave Flaubert

I envision a style: a style That Would Be beautiful, that 'Will someone invent someday, ten years or ten centuries from now, One That Would Be as rhythmic verse, as the precise language of the sciences, undulant, deep-voiced as a cello, tipped with flame: a style That Would pierce your idea like a dagger, and your All which we thought Would Easily sail ahead over a smooth surface like a skiff before a good tail wind.

Gustave Flaubert

Never had Madame Bovary been as beautiful as now. She had that indefinable beauty that comes from happiness, enthusiasm, success -- a beauty that is nothing more of less than a harmony of temperament and circumstances. Her desires, her sorrows, her experience of sensuality, her ever-green illusions, had developed her step by step, like a flower nourished by manure and by the rain, by the wind and the sun; and she was finally blooming in the fullness of her nature.

World | Understand |

Gustave Flaubert

She fancied she saw him opposite at his window; then all grew confused: clouds passed before her, it seemed to her that she was again turning in the waltz beneath the light of the lustres on the arm of the Vicomte, and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all this time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe's head by her side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand caught in a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which invaded her soul.

Fame |

Gustave Flaubert

One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.

Better | Fear | Relationship | Will | World |

Gustave Flaubert

Nevertheless the flames did die down -- whether exhausted from lack of supplies or choked by excessive feeding. Little by little, love was quenched by absence; regret was smothered by routine; and the fiery glow that had reddened her pale sky grew gray and gradually vanished... But the storm kept raging, her passion burned itself to ashes, no help was forthcoming, no new sun rose to the horizon. Night closed in completely around her, and she was left alone in a horrible void of piercing cold.

Fortune | World | Worth |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

First stanza: Millions now living will never die. Second stanza: No more war.

Individual | People |

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.

World |

Gustave Flaubert

The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.

Men |