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

J. Beaumont

To revenge a wrong is easy, usual, and natural, and, as the world thinks, savors of nobleness of mind; but religion teaches the contrary, and tells us it is better to neglect than to require it.

Better | Character | Mind | Neglect | Religion | Revenge | World | Wrong |

Samuel Alexander

Though religion... always envelops conduct, the sentiment of religion and the sense of moral value are distinct.

Character | Conduct | Religion | Sense | Sentiment | Value |

Gamaliel Bailey

There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence.

Absence | Character | Excellence | Qualities |

William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

A man without religion or spiritual vision is like a captain who finds himself in the midst of an uncharted sea, without compass, rudder and steering wheel. He never knows where he is, which way he is going and where he is going to land.

Character | Land | Man | Religion | Vision |

Hugh Blair

The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior; it is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal disposition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit.

Behavior | Character | Gentleness | Religion | Spirit | Temper |

Hugh Blair

All the principles which religion teaches, and all the habits which it forms, are favorable to strength of mind. It will be found that whatever purifies fortifies also the heart.

Character | Heart | Mind | Principles | Religion | Strength | Will |

R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth

We walk, and our religion is shown (even in the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.

Character | Disguise | Man | Means | Nothing | Religion | World |

Pierre Charron

The true science and study of man is man.

Character | Man | Men | Science | Study |

Moncure Daniel Conway

All religion and all ethics are summed up in justice.

Character | Ethics | Justice | Religion | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Cruelty is perhaps the worst kind of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.

Character | Cruelty | Sin | Cruelty |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.

Ability | Character | Courage | Distrust | Meekness | Revenge | Self | Soul | Forgive |

William Ellery Channing

The great duty of God’s children is to love one another. This duty on earth takes the name and form of the law of humanity. We are to recognize all men as brethren, no matter where born, or under what sky, or institution or religion they may live. Every man belongs to the race, and owes a duty to mankind... Men cannot, by combining themselves into narrower or larger societies, sever the sacred, blessed bond which joins them to their kind... The law of humanity must reign; over the assertion of all human rights.

Assertion | Character | Children | Duty | Earth | God | Humanity | Law | Love | Man | Mankind | Men | Race | Religion | Rights | Sacred | Blessed |

William Ellery Channing

All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought. To work effectually, he must think clearly; to act nobly, he must think nobly. Intellectual force is a principal element of the soul’s life, and should be proposed by every man as the principal end of his being.

Character | Force | Life | Life | Man | Soul | Thought | Work | Think |

Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

We do not need more national development, we need more spiritual development. We do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character... We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.

Character | Knowledge | Need | Power |

William Ellery Channing

A religion giving dark views of God, and infusing superstitious fear of innocent enjoyment, instead of aiding sober habits, will, by making men abject and sad, impair their moral force and prepare them for intemperance as a refuge from depression or despair.

Character | Depression | Despair | Enjoyment | Fear | Force | Giving | God | Intemperance | Men | Religion | Will |