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

Theodore Refke

What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.

Character | Madness | Nobility | Soul |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is then certain that compassion is a natural feeling, which, by moderating the violence of love of self in each individual, contributes to the preservation of the whole species.

Character | Compassion | Individual | Love | Self |

Jeremy Taylor

If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of a godly man, how sound he sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed his mind, how free from care, how easy his position, how moist his mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never admire the noises, the diseases, the throngs of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites that fill the house of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious.

Care | Character | Heart | Man | Men | Mind | Position | Quiet | Rest | Sound |

William Graham Sumner

The four great motives which move men to social activity are hunger, love, vanity, and fear of superior powers. If we search out the causes which have moved men to war we find them under each of these motives or interests.

Character | Fear | Hunger | Love | Men | Motives | Search | War |

John G. Stoessinger

Perhaps the most important single factor in the outbreak of war is misperception: a leader's image of himself; [his] view of his adversary's character; his view of his adversary's intentions, and of his adversary's capabilities.

Character | Important | War |

George Matthew Adams

One reason why men and women lose their heads so often is that they use them so little!... The more the mind is used the more flexible it becomes, and the more it takes upon itself new interests.

Little | Men | Mind | Reason | Wisdom |

Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.

Men | People | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Philosophy... consists in keeping the demon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind.

Death | Man | Mind | Need | Nothing | Philosophy | Purpose | Purpose | Waiting | Wisdom |

Brian W. Aldiss, fully Brian Wilson Aldiss

Keep violence in the mind where it belongs.

Mind | Wisdom |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

It is with the desire for peace that wars are waged, even by those who take pleasure in exercising their warlike nature in command and battle. And hence it is obvious that peace is the end sought for by war. For every man seeks peace by waging war, but no man seeks war by making peace... Even wicked men wage war to maintain the peace of their own circle, and wish that, if possible, all men belonged to them, that all men and things might serve but one head, and might, either through love or fear, yield themselves to peace with him!

Battle | Desire | Fear | Love | Man | Men | Nature | Peace | Pleasure | War | Wisdom |

Bible or The Bible or Holy Bible NULL

They shall beat their swords into plough shares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up a sword against nations, neither shall they learn war any more.

Nations | War | Wisdom | Learn |