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

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

A devotee, who spends his time in austerities has nothing to worry about as God fulfills all his needs.

Enlightenment | Knowledge | Intellect |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Happiness will not come from happiness; but only from pain. We know the value of standing in shade only after roaming in the hot day sun.

Better | Good | Teacher |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

Only by doing good can one benefit. Those who detach themselves from 'bad' and yearn for 'good', dedicate their lives to god and to the service of scholars shall be blessed.

Ignorance | Knowledge | Man | Mind |

Rig Veda, or The Rigveda

People on the righteous path always progress, while people who are ignorant always falter and regress.

Good | Knowledge | Leader |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

By the Grace of the Saints, I sing the Praises of the Ocean of virtue; after countless incarnations, I have been released.

Knowledge | Man |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

One, who does not cast evil eyes on her 'own' house... who does not have malevolence towards her husband... giver of joy...seeker of family's welfare... who treads on the righteous path... gives happiness to all... serves all... gives birth to good sons... keeps her brother-in-laws satisfied and gives nourishing food...May such a wife help us attain prosperity.

Knowledge | Prosperity | Wishes | Happiness |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

Anybody trying to become an efficient ruler should try to imbibe all these good qualities.

Knowledge | Teacher |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

We should never have any kind of malevolence towards our friends.

Knowledge | Right |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

Do not tremble in fear but become strong and courageous instead.

Contemplation | Evil | Knowledge | Wisdom | Contemplation |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

There are three types of persons: those, who confess their own faults and mention the excellence of others, are the highest type; those, who highlight their own excellence and decry the faults of others, are worse; those, who parade their own faults as excellence and deride the excellence in others as faults, are the worst. The last type is nowadays most rampant.

Knowledge |

Yajur Veda, or Yajurveda

Ignorant and naïve people should try to acquire maximum knowledge from the knowledgeable ones.

Experience | Knowledge |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord. It might to keep it open.

Knowledge |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope.

Knowledge | Power |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past endurance, it was like listening to somebody interminably recounting a long and stupid dream. He could not force himself to understand how banks functioned and so forth, because all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary. In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men's acts, even the terrible became banal.

Knowledge |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.

Enough | Ideas | Knowledge | Law | Respect | Society | Theories | Society | Respect |

Václav Havel

What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how, and to whom to say things.

Experience | Knowledge | Life | Life | Nothing | Prosperity | Will | Learn |

Václav Havel

Our concern is whether we can live with dignity in such a system, whether it serves people rather than people serving it.

Civilization | Era | Individual | Knowledge | Life | Life | Self |

Valmiki NULL

One’s innermost thoughts and emotions reflect on one’s physical appearance which it is difficult to cover up however one may try to do it. Such changes in one’s physical appearance forcefully expose such innermost emotions and thoughts.

Father | Knowledge | Teacher |

Vannevar Bush

Science, by itself, provides no panacea for individual, social, and economic ills. It can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world.

Faith | Knowledge | Learning | Man | Men | Mission | Will | Learn | Privilege |

Vannevar Bush

All our steps in creating or absorbing material of the record proceed through one of the senses— the tactile when we touch keys, the oral when we speak or listen, the visual when we read. Is it not possible that someday the path may be established more directly?

Conservation | Defense | Knowledge | Learning | Leisure | Man | Means | Objectives | Position | Science | Will | World | Leadership |