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

Eileen Garrett

There is a place for each individual in the world, but you must seek and find where your place is and where you fit in. If you are afraid to take the responsibility of bringing in the new, do not try to stop those souls who are willing to do it. Realize that those souls who have been trained and inspired to undertake this task will do so, for it is their work. Find your rightful place in the whole vast plan, and if you are not in the front line do not let it disturb you. Remember, all sorts of people are needed to make up the whole. Simply accept your specific work and do what you know you have to do wholeheartedly, and allow those souls who have been placed in the position of leadership and responsibility to go ahead. Give them your full backing and complete loyalty; they need it and appreciate it. Lift up your heart in deep love praise and gratitude for them, and always give of your very best.

Future | Language | Mind |

Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver

Ah, what sights and sounds and pain lie beneath that mist. And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place---but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.

Impression | Memory | Mind | Spirit | Unhappiness | Will |

Egyptian Proverbs

Your friend chooses pebbles for you and your enemy counts your faults.

Body |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

The first thing people have got to do is to stop believing there's going to be any action anytime soon, ... It's obviously a prime piece of land. It's what's on the land that makes development difficult.

Doubt | Mind | Torture |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

Affirmative action is the most important modern anti-discrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination. No one who knows anything about the subject would say it hasn't worked. It has certainly done something, or else it wouldn't have provoked so much opposition.

Body |

Elif Safak

Human beings tend to discredit the things he cannot understand for some reason.

Blame | Fear | God | Love | Means | Mind | Reflection | God |

Elihu Root

When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue not by wire pulling and demagoguery not by the arts of popularity not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.

Better | Character | Evil | Folly | Government | Ignorance | Indifference | Indolence | Knowledge | Law | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Nature | Responsibility | Suffering | Time | World | Wrong | Government |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Spezia offered Leopold almost nothing: his precocity devoured itself there, rejecting the steep sunny coast and nibbling blue edge of the sea that had drowned Shelley. His spirit became crustacean under douches of culture and mild philosophic chat from his Uncle Dee, who was cultured rather than erudite.

Mind |

Elias Canetti

I repulse death with all my strength. If I accepted it, I would be a murderer.

Love | Mind | Old |

Elif Safak

What I’m saying is, my friends, one ought to be able to let go. If a path does not please us, instead of insisting on going that specific way, of making our selfishness the guide, we ought to forsake. The books we cannot write, the films we cannot shoot, the projects we cannot develop, the jobs we cannot pursue and the people who no longer love us. Being able to let go, at times, is the most beautiful of all!

Past | Public |

Elif Safak

Writers are selfish people who do not like to draw attention to this fact.

Daughter | Love | Mind | Mother |

Albert Einstein

The misunderstanding here is due to a faulty translation of a German text, in particular the use of the word "mystical." I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic.

Body | Soul |

Elif Safak

Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.

Change | Contentment | Daughter | Day | Life | Life | Light | Looks | Mind | Nothing | People | Power | Regret | Safe | Time | Will | Wonder | Wrong | Think |

Elias Canetti

Nothing was better for you than humiliation, for there was nothing you felt more deeply.

Better | Diet | Goals | Mind | Novels | Personality | Pleasure | Size | Strength | Taste | Teach | Think | Understand |

William Shakespeare

Sir Hugh, persuade me not--I will make a Starchamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, Esquire.

Mind |

William Shakespeare

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Boys | Day | Glory | Good | Greatness | Hate | Heart | Hope | Little | Man | Mercy | Pride | Smile | Old |

William Shakespeare

SALERIO: If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. SOLANIO: I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbors believe she wept for the death of a third husband.

Business | Love | Mind | Business |

William Shakespeare

Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel; then what should war be?

Business | Mercy | Sense | Sorrow | Business |

William Shakespeare

ROSENCRANTZ: Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. ROSENCRANTZ: I understand you not, my lord. HAMLET: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Body |

William Shakespeare

Since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determinèd to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Body | Will |