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

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

If you want to help the “masses” and win the sympathy and support of the “masses,” you should not fear difficulties, or pinpricks, chicanery, insults and persecution from the “leaders,” but must absolutely work wherever the masses are to be found.

War |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action.

Bourgeoisie |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Worst of all, it is women who usually have to do, usually alone, all the dirty work of the kitchen and household, work that is unimportant, hard, tiresome, and soul-destroying.

Control | Guarantee | Poverty | Property | Work |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Workers and peasants, working and exploited people! The land, the banks and the factories have now become the property of the entire people! You yourselves must set to work to take account of and control the production and distribution of products—this, and this alone is the road to the victory of socialism, the only guarantee of its victory, the guarantee of victory over all exploitation, over all poverty and want!

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

A standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power.

Defeat | Government | Government |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.

Better | Bourgeoisie | Brutality | Church | Gold | Government | Haste | Lesson | Means | Order | People | Principles | Property | Sense | Struggle | Sympathy | Wealth | Will | Work | Government | Think |

Vladimir Lenin, fully Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Notwithstanding all the differences in the aims and tasks of the Russian revolution, compared with the French revolution of 1871, the Russian proletariat had to resort to the same method of struggle as that first used by the Paris Commune — civil war. Mindful of the lessons of the Commune, it knew that the proletariat should not ignore peaceful methods of struggle — they serve its ordinary, day-to-day interests, they are necessary in periods of preparation for revolution — but it must never forget that in certain conditions the class struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes.

Energy | Nothing | Proletariat | Revolution | Will | World |

Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

I’ve never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline.

Commitment | Excellence | Government | Life | Life | Politics | Excellence | Government |

Vine Deloria, fully Vine Victor Deloria, Jr.

Religion cannot be kept within the bounds of sermons and scriptures. It is a force in itself and it calls for the integration of lands and peoples in harmonious unity. The lands (of earth) wait for those who can discern their rhythms. The peculiar genius of each continent, the placid lakes, all call for relief from the constant burdens of exploitation.

Life | Life | Peace | War |

Vincent van Gogh, fully Vincent Willem van Gogh

The way to know life is to love many things.

Better | Effort | Life | Life | Work |

Vera Mary Brittain

I know of no place where the wind can be as icy and the damp so penetrating as in Oxford round about Easter time.

Death | Little | Man | Think |

Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard

We learn to escape from self-defeating behavior in small ways at first. You can do this by thinking of present situations where you now say YES but wish you could stop. Recall several small situations. Perhaps you have agreed to meet regularly with a friend or relative but realize that it is really a burden. Maybe you agreed to take the leadership in a certain project but now you wish you had declined. You now know WHERE you must say NO. The next step is also clear. SAY NO. Make the necessary contact and resign. Just like that. Do it even if you feel nervous about it. Don’t listen to your timidity. Do what is right. Do you know what you are doing! You are getting your life back!

Defeat | Light |

Victor Hugo

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.

Calamity | Challenge | Calamity | Afraid |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, and the thoughts of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I still would have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of that image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."

Challenge | Life | Life | Majority | Men | Opportunity |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response.

Accomplishment | Challenge | Chance | Circumstances | Failure | Greatness | Life | Life | Majority | Men | Opportunity | People | Words | Failure | Think |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Life without goodness, good thoughts, good actions and good words is like the sky in the night without the moon or stars. It is like a wheel without a hub or spokes. No one can push a boulder away while standing on it; you cannot be free from anxiety while all the entrances through which it sneaks in are open.

Defeat | Winning |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Get free from negative qualities like violence, anger and hatred. We should never be indignant and resentful.

Right |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Carry with thy voice, O drum, lack of heart, and failure of courage among the enemies. Disagreement, dismay, and fright, do we place into the enemies, beat them down, O drum.

Defeat | Nothing | Work |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Haver patience; do not, in your hurry, enjoy cheap joys, fall into error and unrighteous deeds.

Faith | Will |

Valmiki NULL

Words of conciliation to the rakshasas will not bring out any good (Soft words will not have any effect on a rakshasa). In the same way one cannot pacify an immensly wealthy person by offering him material things.

Discussion | Men | Wise |