Great Throughts Treasury

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

Russell H. Conwell, fully Russell Herman Conwell

American Educator, Author, Baptist Minister, Orator, Philanthropist, Lawyer and Writer

"When a man has done all he can do, still there is a might, mysterious agency over which he needs influence to secure success. The only way he can reach it is by prayer."

"The power of little things to give instruction and happiness should be the first lesson in life, and it should be inculcated deeply."

"No matter what you do, do it to your utmost. I always attribute my success to always requiring myself to do my level best, if only in driving a tack in straight."

"He most lives who thinks most."

"Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are. He who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia."

"He that can be a blessing to the community in which he lives tonight will be great anywhere, but he who cannot be a blessing where he now lives will never be great anywhere on the face of God's earth."

"Greatness consists not in holding some office; greatness really consists in doing some great deed with little means, in the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life that is true greatness."

"No matter what you do, do it to your utmost. I always attribute my success to always requiring myself to do my level best, if only in driving a tack in straight."

"Many of us spend our lives searching for success when it is usually so close that we can reach out and touch it."

"The great inventors are simply great men; the greater the man the more simple the man; and the more simple a machine, the more valuable it is."

"The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own."

"The idea is that in this country of ours every man has the opportunity to make more of himself than he does in his own environment, with his own skill, with his own energy, and with his own friends."

"You can journey to the ends of the earth in search of success, but if you’re lucky, you will discover happiness in your own backyard."

"When a man has done all he can do, still there is a mighty, mysterious agency over which he needs influence to secure success. The one way he can reach it is by prayer."

"We must teach that men are great only on their intrinsic value, and not on the position they may incidentally happen to occupy."

"What this country needs is men that will do what we tell them to do. This nation—where the people rule—is governed by the people, for the people, and so long as it is, then the office-holder is but the servant of the people, and the Bible says the servant cannot be greater than the master."

"Your diamonds are not in far distant mountains or in yonder seas; they are in your own backyard, if you but dig for them."

"A man is not really a true man until he owns his own home, and they that own their homes are made more honorable and honest and pure, true and economical and careful, by owning the home."

"Do you ever see a man who struts around altogether too large to notice an ordinary working mechanic? Do you think he is great?"

"Begin where you are and what you are."

"Greatness consists not in holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private ranks of life."

"Happiness is the experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude."

"He had not lost anything, but he was poor because he was discontented, and discontented because he feared he was poor."

"It is easy to raise a laugh, but dangerous, for it is the greatest test of an orator's control of his audience to be able to land them again on the solid earth of sober thinking."

"Money is power, and you ought to be reasonably ambitious to have it. You ought because you can do more good with it than you could do without it. Money printed your Bible, money builds your churches, money sends your missionaries, and money pays your preachers, and you would not have many of them, either, if you did not pay them."

"Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money."

"He was contented because he was wealthy and wealthy because he was contented."

"I say that you ought to get rich, and it is our duty to get rich."

"Of all the simpletons the stars shine on I don?t know of a worse one that the man who leaves one job before he has gotten another."

"Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu, when someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too. I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin when he smiled I realized I?d passed it on to him . I thought about that smile then I realized its worth, a single smile, just like mine could travel round the earth. So, if you feel a smile begin, don?t leave it undetected let?s start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected."

"The gift of life is not a treasure hunt; you can't look for success, the treasure is within you."

"Ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men in America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them."

"The really great man is plain, straightforward, everyday, commonsense man."

"The moment a young man or woman gets more money than he or she has grown to by practical experience, that moment he has gotten a curse."

"There is no class of people to be pitied so much as the inexperienced sons and daughters of the rich of our generation. I pity the rich man?s son."

"There is no greatness there."

"You cannot trust a man with your money who cannot take care of his own."

"You think you are going to be made great by an office, but remember that is you are not great before you get the office, you won?t be great when you secure it. It will only be a burlesque in that shape."

"There is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings, or by the shortcomings of someone else. It is all wrong to be poor, anyhow."

"True greatness is often unrecognized."