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

William James

We wish to preserve the fire of the past, not the ashes.

Past | Wisdom |

Lucan, full name Marcus Annaeus Lucanus NULL

As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.

Earth | Integrity | Self | Self-interest | Wisdom |

Bernard M. Martin, D.D

To most people loneliness is a doom. Yet loneliness is the very thing which god has chosen to be one of the schools of training for His very own. It is the fire that sheds the dross and reveals the gold.

God | Gold | Loneliness | People | Training | Wisdom | God |

Joseph Fort Newton

Belief is a truth held in the mind. Faith is a fire in the heart.

Belief | Faith | Heart | Mind | Truth | Wisdom |

Samuel Richardson

Romances, in general, are calculated rather to fire the imagination than to inform the judgment.

Imagination | Judgment | Wisdom |

Jeremy Taylor

If these little sparks of holy fire which I have thus heaped up together do not give life to your prepared and already enkindled spirit, yet they will sometimes help to entertain a thought, to actuate a passion, to employ and hallow a fancy.

Life | Life | Little | Passion | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom |

Daniel Webster

If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, and labor starves.

Labor | Wisdom |

Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.

Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |

Tennessee Williams, fully Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams

I think time is a merciless thing. I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you. But I think the spirit of man is a good adversary.

Good | Life | Life | Man | Spirit | Time | Wisdom | Think |

Robert Aris Willmott

The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an hour's reflection to an hour's reading, and so dispirit the book into the student.

Advice | Imagination | Learning | Reading | Reflection | Scholar | Wisdom |

Phillips Brooks

To stand held only by the invisible chains of higher duty, and so standing, to let the fire creep up to the heart - that is the truer heroism.

Duty | Heart |

Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours are nothing but the mind. Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames of fire are nothing but the mind. The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn are nothing but the mind. Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind.

Death | Dreams | Life | Life | Mind | Nothing |

Dhammapada NULL

There is no fire like passion, no shark like hatred, no snare like folly, and no torrent like greed.

Folly | Greed | Passion |

Carolyn Gold Heilbrun, pen name Amanda Cross

Only a marriage with partners strong enough to risk divorce is strong enough to avoid it.

Enough | Marriage | Risk |

Inuit Sayings

Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.

Tomorrow |

Ko Hung, aka Ge Hong, courtesy name Zhichuan

If one is moderate in developing one’s justifiable inclinations, and succeeds in freeing oneself of one’s inhibitions, this will not shorten one’s life span, but increase it. All of these things can be compared to fire and water: only their excessive use is harmful.

Life | Life | Will |

Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

Keep yourselves away from envy; because it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood.

Envy | Good |

Abu’l A’la Mawdudi

In the so-called Western secular democracy… a divorce has been effected between politics and religion, and as a result of this secularization, the society and particularly its politically active elements have ceased to attach much or any importance to morality or ethics.

Democracy | Ethics | Morality | Politics | Religion | Society | Society |

Robert M. Linder, fully Robert Mitchell Linder

Supported by the authority of all institutions, parenthood has come to amount to little more than a campaign against individuality. Every father and every mother trembles lest an offspring, in act or thought, should be different from his fellows; and the smallest display of uniqueness in a child becomes the signal for the application of drastic measures aimed at stamping out that small fire of noncompliance by which personal distinctness is expressed. In an atmosphere of anxiety, in a climate of apprehension, the parental conspiracy against children is planned.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Authority | Children | Conspiracy | Display | Father | Individuality | Little | Mother | Thought | Child |