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

Václav Havel

This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique ... something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.

Birth | Civilization | Faith | Global | History | Human race | Race | Reality | Science |

Václav Havel

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.

Ideas | Salvation | World |

Václav Havel

There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.

Courage | Ideas | Work | Worth |

Tommaso Campanella, baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella

On the sixth interior are painted all the mechanical arts, with the several instruments for each and their manner of use among different nations. Alongside, the dignity of such is placed, and their several inventors are named. But on the exterior all the inventors in science, in warfare, and in law are represented.

History | World |

Tryon Edwards

Firmness is adherence to truth and duty is generally most decided when most intelligent and conscientious, and is sometimes mistaken for obstinacy by those who do not comprehend its nature and motive.

History | Life | Life | Men |

Tryon Edwards

Give work rather than alms to the poor. The former drives out indolence, the latter industry.

Beginning | History | Rights |

Hsuan Hua, aka An Tzu and Tu Lun

Ignorance is the root of afflictions, the root of birth and death, and the root of all troubles and problems.

Ideas | People | Respect | Respect |

Tryon Edwards

It is not true that there are no enjoyments in the ways of sin; there are, many and various. - But the great and radical defect of them all is, that they are transitory and unsubstantial, at war with reason and conscience, and always leave a sting behind. We are hungry, and they offer us bread; but it is poisoned bread. We are thirsty, and they offer us drink; but it is from deadly fountains. They may and often do satisfy us for the moment; but it is death in the end. It is only the bread of heaven and the water of life that can so satisfy that we shall hunger no more and thirst no more forever.

History | Religion | Science |

Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.

It is essential for each of us to strive to retain originality and to maintain our identity as human beings.

Fear | Ideas | Important | Mind | Stigma |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money; it is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations. It is when people or nations are humiliated that they really lash out and engage in extreme violence.

Global | History | Knowledge | People |

Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

God made man of the dust of the earth and man makes a god of the dust of the earth

Danger | Fear | Ideas | Mind | Stigma | Danger |

Thomas J. Watson, Jr., fully Thomas John Watson, Jr.

The little things we do - or fail to do - often testify louder than the loudest statements of our intentions.

Ideas | Man |

Thomas R. Kelly, fully Thomas Raymond Kelly

Do not mistake me. Our interest just now is in the life of complete obedience to God, not in amazing revelations of His glory graciously granted only to some. Yet the amazing experiences of the mystics leave a permanent residue, a God-subdued, a God-possessed will. States of consciousness are fluctuating. The vision fades. But holy and listening and alert obedience remains, as the core and kernel of a God-intoxicated life, as the abiding pattern of sober, workaday living. And some are led into the state of complete obedience by this well-nigh passive route, wherein God alone seems to be the actor and we seem to be wholly acted upon. And our wills are melted and dissolved and made pliant, being firmly fixed in Him, and He wills in us. But in contrast to this passive route to complete obedience most people must follow what Jean-Nicholas Grou calls the active way, wherein we must struggle and, like Jacob of old, wrestle with the angel until the morning dawns, the active way wherein the will must be subjected bit by bit, piecemeal and progressively, to the divine Will.

Day | Earth | Eternal | God | Heaven | History | Insight | Life | Life | Little | Love | Mind | Obedience | Openness | Prayer | Present | Psychology | Reality | Sacred | Submission | Vision | Will | Words | Work | God |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

With Saddam rattled, now is the time to really rattle his cage: Turn up the volume on Radio Free Iraq to extra loud and call for his ouster 24 hours a day: ”All Saddam, all the time.” Take steps to have Saddam declared a war criminal by the U.N. Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who’s in charge. Offer a reward for removing Saddam from office. Use every provocation by Saddam to blow up another Iraqi general’s home.

Civilization | Fate | Heart | History | Study | Fate |

Thomas J. Watson, fully Thomas John Watson, Sr.

The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly exceed them.

Ideas | Man |

Thomas L. Friedman, fully Thomas Lauren Friedman

There is no future in vanilla for most companies in a flat world. A lot of vanilla making in software and other areas is going to shift to open-source communities.

Balance | Business | Global | Good | Growth | History | Past | People | Poverty | Power | Price | Size | Time | Will | World | Business | Think |

Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz

The fundamental error of psychiatry is that it regards life as a problem to be solved, instead of as a purpose to be fulfilled.

Ideas | Life | Life | Power |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world.

Audacity | History | Looks | Majority | Man | Patriotism | Right |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken

Business | Disparagement | Error | Experience | History | Hope | Influence | Justice | Love | Mankind | Nations | People | Service | Will | World | Business |