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 Blake

Love's Secret - Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears. Ah! she did depart! Soon after she was gone from me, A traveler came by, Silently, invisibly: He took her with a sigh.

Comfort | Earth | God | Joy | Little | Love | Men | Mother | Soul | Will | God | Learn |

William Blake

To be or not to be Of great capacity, Like Sir Isaac Newton, Or Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death— I’d rather be Sutton! 2 For he did build a house For agèd men and youth, With walls of brick and stone; He furnish’d it within With whatever he could win, And all his own. He drew out of the Stocks His money in a box, And sent his servant To Green the Bricklayer, And to the Carpenter; He was so fervent. The chimneys were threescore, The windows many more; And, for convenience, He sinks and gutters made, And all the way he pav’d To hinder pestilence. Was not this a good man— Whose life was but a span, Whose name was Sutton— As Locke, or Doctor South, Or Sherlock upon Death, Or Sir Isaac Newton?

Father | Grief | Joy | Man | Mother | Pity | Sorrow | Tears |

William Blake

Songs of Innocence (Introduction) - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped; he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy cheer:’ So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear. ‘Piper, sit thee down and write In a book, that all may read.’ So he vanish’d from my sight, And I pluck’d a hollow reed, And I made a rural pen, And I stain’d the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear.

Angels | Comfort | Darkness | Day | Death | Eternal | Family | Grave | Heaven | Joy | Light | Little | Mother | Nature | Silence | Sin | Sorrow | Soul | Sound | Space | Spirit | Tears | Thinking | Woman | World | Youth | Youth |

William Blake

To God - If you have form’d a circle to go into, Go into it yourself, and see how you would do.

Body | Children | Earth | Father | God | Mother | Prayer | Soul | Vengeance | Work | World | Writing | God |

William Blake

The Land of Dreams - Awake, awake, my little boy! Thou wast thy mother’s only joy; Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep? Awake! thy father does thee keep. ‘O, what land is the Land of Dreams? What are its mountains, and what are its streams? O father! I saw my mother there, Among the lilies by waters fair. ‘Among the lambs, clothèd in white, She walk’d with her Thomas in sweet delight. I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn; O! when shall I again return?’ Dear child, I also by pleasant streams Have wander’d all night in the Land of Dreams; But tho’ calm and warm the waters wide, I could not get to the other side. ‘Father, O father! what do we here In this land of unbelief and fear? The Land of Dreams is better far, Above the light of the morning star.’

Day | Father | Mother | Nothing | Rage | Sorrow | Thought | Time | World | Youth | Youth | Thought |

William Blake

My Spectre around me night and day Like a wild beast guards my way; My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my sin. ‘A fathomless and boundless deep, There we wander, there we weep; On the hungry craving wind My Spectre follows thee behind. ‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow, Wheresoever thou dost go, Thro’ the wintry hail and rain. When wilt thou return again? ‘Dost thou not in pride and scorn Fill with tempests all my morn, And with jealousies and fears Fill my pleasant nights with tears? ‘Seven of my sweet loves thy knife Has bereavèd of their life. Their marble tombs I built with tears, And with cold and shuddering fears. ‘Seven more loves weep night and day Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night Around my couch with torches bright. ‘And seven more loves in my bed Crown with wine my mournful head, Pitying and forgiving all Thy transgressions great and small. ‘When wilt thou return and view My loves, and them to life renew? When wilt thou return and live? When wilt thou pity as I forgive?’ [‘O’er my sins thou sit and moan: Hast thou no sins of thy own? O’er my sins thou sit and weep, And lull thy own sins fast asleep.] [‘What transgressions I commit Are for thy transgressions fit. They thy harlots, thou their slave; And my bed becomes their grave.] ‘Never, never, I return: Still for victory I burn. Living, thee alone I’ll have; And when dead I’ll be thy grave. ‘Thro’ the Heaven and Earth and Hell Thou shalt never, never quell: I will fly and thou pursue: Night and morn the flight renew.’ [‘Poor, pale, pitiable form That I follow in a storm; Iron tears and groans of lead Bind around my aching head.] ‘Till I turn from Female love And root up the Infernal Grove, I shall never worthy be To step into Eternity. ‘And, to end thy cruel mocks, Annihilate thee on the rocks, And another form create To be subservient to my fate. ‘Let us agree to give up love, And root up the Infernal Grove; Then shall we return and see The worlds of happy Eternity. ‘And throughout all Eternity I forgive you, you forgive me. As our dear Redeemer said: “This the Wine, and this the Bread.”’

Mother | Wisdom | Old |

William Blake

A Divine Image - Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secrecy the human dress. The human dress is forgèd iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace seal’d, The human heart its hungry gorge.

Better | Dreams | Father | Land | Light | Little | Mother | Unbelief |

Willem de Kooning

The ‘Women’ had to do with the female painted through all ages, all those idols, and maybe I was stuck to a certain extent; I couldn’t go on. It did one thing for me: it eliminated composition, arrangement, relationships, light – all this silly talk about line, color and form – because that was the thing I wanted to get hold off.

Mother |

William Blake

My mother groan'd! My father wept. Into the dangerous world I leapt: helpless, naked, piping loud: like a fiend hid in a cloud.

Earth | Joy | Little | Love | Mother | Soul | Will | Learn |

William Blake

My silks and fine array, my smiles and languish'd air, by love are driv'n away; and mournful lean despair brings me yew to deck my grave: such end true lovers have.

Father | Mother | World |

William Blake

Children of the future age reading this indignant page know that in a former time love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

Father | Mother | Sorrow | Child |

William Blake

I do not like the man's face. He looks as if he will live to be hanged.

Children | Mother |

William Carleton

My native place was [alive] with old legends, tales, traditions, customs and superstitions; so that in my early youth, even beyond the walls of my own humble roof, they met me in every direction.

Better | Confidence | Education | Esteem | Father | Heart | Imagination | Integrity | Language | Legends | Man | Memory | Mind | Mother | Peculiarity | People | Piety | Present | Rank | Receive | Spirit | Will | Youth | Youth | Blessed | Circumstance | Old |

William Blake

When nations grow old the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree.

Father | Mother |

Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

Let the music speak to us of tonight, in a happier language than our own.

Consequences | Good | Mind | Mother | Nature | Persuasion | Will |

Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

I was wondering ... whether there is such a thing as chance.

Mother | Thought | Time | Thought |

Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

Knowing | Man | Mother | Will |

Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant

India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.

Ideals | Mother |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

My idea of an honest man is a fellow who declares income tax on money he sold his vote for.

Father | Mother |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers

Your mothers get mighty shocked at you girls nowadays, but in her day, her mother was just on the

Mother | Reform |