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

Charles Dudley Warner

There is no such thing as absolute value in this world. You can only estimate what a thing is worth to you.

Absolute | Wisdom | World | Worth | Value |

William Allen White

Everyone expects to go further than his father went; everyone expects to be better than he was born and every generation has one big impulse in its heart - to exceed all the other generations of the past in all the things that make life worth living.

Better | Father | Heart | Impulse | Life | Life | Past | Wisdom | Worth |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

No matter! – so long as the world is the work of eternal goodness, and so long as conscience has not deceived us – to give happiness, and to do good, there is our only law, our anchor of salvation, our beacon light, our reason for existing. All religions may crumble away; so long as this survives we have still an ideal, and life is worth living.

Conscience | Eternal | Good | Law | Life | Life | Light | Reason | Salvation | Work | World | Worth |

William Wirt

In composing, think much more of your matter than your manner. Spirit, grace, and dignity of manner are of great importance, both to the speaker and writer; but of infinitely more importance are the weight and worth of matter.

Dignity | Grace | Spirit | Wisdom | Worth | Think |

Ancrene Wisse, aka Ancrene Riwle NULL

You ought to say fewer fixed prayers so that you may do more reading. Reading is good prayer. Reading teaches us how to pray, and what to pray for, and then prayer achieves it. In the course of reading, when the heart is pleased, there arises a spirit of devotion which is worth many prayers.

Devotion | Good | Heart | Prayer | Reading | Spirit | Worth |

Robert Bellarmine, fully Saint Robert Bellarmine

An ounce of peace is worth more than a pound of victory.

Peace | Worth |

Julian Baggini

One reason why the unexamined life can still be worth living is that it can be a life full of love.

Life | Life | Love | Reason | Worth |

George Arthur Buttrick

All true prayer is worship – the ascription of worth to the Eternal. Without adoration, thanksgiving may become a miserliness, petition a selfish clamor, intercession a currying of special favors for our friends, and even contemplation may turn into a refined indulgence.

Contemplation | Eternal | Indulgence | Prayer | Worship | Worth | Contemplation |

Albert Einstein

The essence of the Jewish concept of life seems to me to be the affirmation of life for all creatures. For the life of the individual has meaning only in the service of enhancing and ennobling the life of every living thing. Life is holy; i.e., it is the highest worth on which all other values depend.

Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Service | Worth |

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

Fighting | Freedom | Means | Worth |

Henry Ford

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.

History | Present | Tradition | Worth |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes [err].

Freedom | Worth |

Benjamin Franklin

One today is worth two tomorrows.

Worth |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Life without commitment is not worth living.

Commitment | Life | Life | Worth |

Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal

Prayer is an expression of man’s inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe. It is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego affirms itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own worth and justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe.

Discovery | Dynamic | Ego | Justification | Life | Life | Man | Prayer | Self | Silence | Unique | Universe | Worth | Discovery |

Morris Joseph

The divine test of a man’s worth is not his theology but his life.

Life | Life | Man | Theology | Worth |