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

Howard Crosby

A wisely chosen illustration is almost essential to fasten the truth upon the ordinary mind, and no teacher can afford to neglect this part of his preparation.

Mind | Neglect | Truth | Wisdom | Teacher |

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr.

As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered, which can seldom or never be fitted into creeds that are changeless.

Time | Truth | Wisdom |

Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in truth we who are creatures of impulse are creatures of despair.

Despair | Enough | Impulse | Man | Truth | Wisdom |

William Cowper

Diff'ring judgments serve but to declare that Truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.

Truth | Wisdom |

Donald Davidson

Beliefs, desires, and intentions are a condition of language, but language is also a condition for them. On the other hand, being able to attribute beliefs and desires to a creature is certainly a condition of sharing a convention with that creature; while, if I am right... convention is not a condition of language. I suggest, then, that philosopher who make convention a necessary element in language have the matter backwards. The truth is rather that language is a condition for having conventions.

Convention | Language | Right | Truth | Wisdom |

William Congreve

Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.

Guilt | Innocence | Truth | Wisdom |

William Cowper

All truth is precious, if not all divine; and what dilates the powers must needs refine.

Truth | Wisdom |

William Cowper

He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves beside.

Truth | Wisdom |

Rufus Choate

All that happens in the world of nature and man - every war, every peace, every horn of prosperity, every horn of adversity, every election, every death, every life, every success and every failure, all change, all permanence, the perished leer, the unutterable glory of stars - all things speak truth in the thoughtful spirit.

Adversity | Change | Death | Failure | Glory | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Peace | Prosperity | Spirit | Success | Truth | War | Wisdom | World |

Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow

The pursuit of truth shall set you free - even if you never catch up with it.

Truth | Wisdom |

Samuel Coley

Science is but the statement of truth found out.

Science | Truth | Wisdom |

Victor Cousin

Art neither belongs to religion, nor to ethics; but, like these, it brings us nearer to the Infinite, on of the forms of which it manifests to us. God is the source of all beauty, as of all truth of all religion, of all morality. The most exalted object, therefore, of art is to reveal in its own manner the sentiment of the Infinite.

Art | Beauty | Ethics | God | Morality | Object | Religion | Sentiment | Truth | Wisdom | Art | God |

Donald Davidson

The first principle asserts that at least some mental events interact causally with physical events... The second principle is that where there is causality, there must be a law: events related as cause and effect fall under strict deterministic laws... The third principle is that there are no strict deterministic laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained... from the fact that there can be no strict psychophysical laws, and without our other two principles, we can infer the truth of a version of the identity theory, that is, a theory that identifies at least some mental events with physical events.

Cause | Events | Law | Principles | Truth | Wisdom |

Orville Dewey

The love of truth is the stimulus to all noble conversation. This is the root of all the charities. The true which springs from it may have a thousand branches, but they will all bear a golden and generous fruitage.

Conversation | Love | Truth | Will | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Hell is truth seen too late - duty neglected in its season.

Duty | Hell | Truth | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Always have a book at hand, in the parlor, on the table, for the family; a book of condensed thought and striking anecdote, of sound maxims and truthful apothegms. It will impress on your mind a thousand valuable suggestions, and teach your children lessons of truth and duty. Such a book is a casket of jewels for your household.

Apothegms | Children | Duty | Family | Maxims | Mind | Sound | Teach | Thought | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Thought |