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

Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

Each of the four main virtues - wisdom, courage, temperance, justice - is a sovereign wielding authority.

Authority | Character | Courage | Justice | Wisdom |

Joseph Parker

Outward judgment often fails, inward justice never.

Character | Judgment | Justice |

Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |

Publius Syrus

Nothing is benefited by delay except anger.

Anger | Character | Delay | Nothing |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To serve God is not to pass our lives on our knees in prayer; it is to discharge on earth those obligations which our duty requires.

Character | Duty | Earth | God | Prayer | God |

Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL

Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to. Many such things are proved by their contraries.

Character | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Virtue | Virtue |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The fundamental principle of all morals, on the basis of which I have reasoned in all my writings... is that man is naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is absolutely no original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right.

Character | Good | Heart | Justice | Man | Nature | Order | Right |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Our first duties are to ourselves; our first feelings are centered on self; all our instincts are at first directed to our own preservation and our own welfare. Thus the first notion of justice springs not from what we owe to others, but from what is due to us.

Character | Feelings | Justice | Self |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.

Character | Duty | Gratitude | Right |

Sydney Smith

That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. this is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled; this is that charity which no labor can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers; that is seen by no man, and honored by no man, but, like the great laws of Nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to a future and better world for its reward.

Better | Character | Charity | Duty | Future | God | Hope | Ingratitude | Labor | Looks | Man | Nature | Reward | Sense | Silence | Work | World | God |

Samuel Smiles

Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one’s duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.

Character | Duty | Life | Life | Men | Nothing |

Robert Southey

A good man and a wise man may, at times, be angry with the world, and at times grieved for it; but no man was ever discontented with the world if he did his duty in it.

Character | Duty | Good | Man | Wise | World |

William Graham Sumner

It is taught that willing and voluntary service to others is the highest duty and glory in human life... The men of talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books, and produce the works of art. The benefit and enjoyment go to the whole. There are those who joyfully order their own lives so that they may serve the welfare of mankind.

Art | Books | Character | Duty | Enjoyment | Glory | Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Order | Rest | Service | Talent |

Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin

Whatever may happen in the future, I know that I have learned three things which will remain forever convictions of my heart as well as my mind. Life, even the hardest life, is the most beautiful, wonderful and miraculous treasure in the world. Fulfillment of duty is another beautiful thing, making life happy and giving to the soul an unconquerable force to sustain ideals. This is my second conviction, and my third is that cruelty, hatred, and injustice never can and never will be able to create a mental, moral or material millennium.

Character | Convictions | Cruelty | Duty | Force | Fulfillment | Future | Giving | Happy | Heart | Ideals | Injustice | Injustice | Life | Life | Mind | Soul | Will | World |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

There is one person whom it is my duty to make good and that is myself.

Character | Duty | Good |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere besides the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.

Character | Duty | Good | Little | Pleasure | World |

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable with himself.

Character | Duty | Man | Neglect | Spirit |