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

Henry Brooke

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules.

Character | Passion |

Rupert Brooke

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules.

Character | Passion |

Jean de La Bruyère

The strongest passion is fear.

Character | Fear | Passion |

James Boswell

There is no passion so distressing as fear, which gives us great pain and makes us appear contemptible in our own eyes to the last degree. Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest pretensions to independency.

Character | Fear | Government | Men | Order | Pain | Passion |

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, aka Lord Clarendon

Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more directly than any other against whom it is directed.

Anger | Character | Man | Mind | Nothing | Passion |

William Ellery Channing

The more discussion the better, if passion and personality be eschewed; and discussion, even if stormy, often winnows truth from error - a good never to be expected in an uninquiring age.

Age | Better | Character | Discussion | Error | Good | Passion | Personality | Truth |

W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon

The astonishing thing about him [man] is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals, far removed from his material surroundings and animal activities, and in no way suggested by them, yet for which, such is his affection, he is willing to endure toils and privations, to sacrifice pleasures, to disdain griefs and frustrations. The inner truth is that every man is himself a creator, by birth and nature, an artist, an architect and fashioner of worlds.

Birth | Character | Disdain | Ideals | Ideas | Man | Nature | Passion | Sacrifice | Truth | Vision |

Tyron Edwards

The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong. We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter.

Appetite | Character | Conscience | Impulse | Passion | Right | Wisdom | Wrong |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.

Character | Order | Passion | Riches | Riches |

Benjamin Franklin

If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins.

Character | Passion | Reason |

Owen Feltham

It often falls out, that the end of passion is the beginning of repentance.

Beginning | Character | Passion | Repentance |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Anger is a momentary madness, so control your passion or it will control you.

Anger | Character | Control | Madness | Passion | Will |

Aaron Hill

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself - for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Character | Fear | Glory | Man | Nature | Passion | Soul |

Henry Home, Lord Kames

An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his wishes will oblige you to stop short at last after he has become headstrong.

Character | Impossibility | Passion | Will | Wishes | Child |

David Hume

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.

Character | Imagination | Passion | Rule | Wit |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even reach it, but no one gets further.

Character | Faith | Man | Passion |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual’s inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping god objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast to the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith.

Character | Contradiction | Faith | God | Individual | Passion | Risk | Uncertainty | God |