Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Policy

"Because I love the South, I rejoice in the failure of the Confederacy." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"The seed of revolution is repression." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

"But I pray you, let none of your people stir me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me." - William Shakespeare

"Misfortune does not always wait on vice; nor is success the constant guest of virtue." - William Havard

"To him was given the duty and responsibility of making that great classic of liberty, the Declaration of Independence, no longer an empty promise, but a glorious fulfillment." - William McKinley

"Language the most forcible proceeds from the man who is most sincere. The way to speak with power, or to write words that pierce mankind to the quick, is to speak and write honestly." - Elias L. Magoon

"Under the assumption of profound esteem, the flatterer wears an outward expression of fidelity, as foreign to his heart as the smile upon the face of the dead." - Elias L. Magoon

"It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war." - Elihu Root

"Women share with men the need for personal success, even the taste of power, and no longer are we willing to satisfy those needs through the achievements of surrogates, whether husbands, children, or merely role models." - Elizabeth Dole, fully Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole

"In the true sense one's native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home." - Emma Goldman

"From our position of being reasonably well off and comfortable, [perhaps] university professors, we tend to be patronizing about the poor in a very specific sense, which is that we tend to think, ‘Why don’t they take more responsibility for their lives?’ And what we are forgetting is that the richer you are the less responsibility you need to take for your own life because everything is taken care for you. And the poorer you are the more you have to be responsible for everything about your life… My lesson is to stop berating people for not being responsible and start to think of ways instead of providing the poor with the luxury that we all have, which is that a lot of decisions are taken for us. If we do nothing, we are on the right track. For most of the poor, if they do nothing, they are on the wrong track." - Esther Duflo

"Is Smart Making Us Dumb? A revolution in technology is allowing previously inanimate objects—from cars to trash cans to teapots—to talk back to us and even guide our behavior. But how much control are we willing to give up?" - Evgeny Morozov

"They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people." - Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

"That great and wise American, Thomas Jefferson, warned us of the danger of conferring unwarranted power upon our government administrators in these sobering words: “Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go. . . . In questions of power, then, let not more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”" - Ezra Taft Benson

"The future and strength of the race is for women to be able to have kids when they want them and to love and provide them with the tools they'll need to get through a hostile world. The image of the black woman bearing child upon child against her will is the real threat to the race." - Faye Wattleton

"Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool." - Italian Proverbs

"The soldier is well paid for doing mischief." - Italian Proverbs

"Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game: the heavy financial interests... the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press... but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt, and it has gone out and conquered the world." - J. B. Priestly, fully John Boynton Priestly