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

Plotinus NULL

Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that they hold some greater thing within them, though they cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the utterances that come from them they perceive the power, not themselves, that moves them: I the same way, it must be, we stand towards the Supreme when we hold nous pure; we know the Divine Mind within, that which gives Being and all else of that order: but we know, too, that other, know that it is none of these, but a nobler principle than anything we know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason, mind and feeling; conferring these powers, not to be confounded with them.

Character | Knowledge | Mind | Order | Power | Reason |

Ronald E. Osborn

You may glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.

Character | Knowledge | Reading | Thinking |

Francis Quarles

The height of all philosophy is to know thyself; and the end of this knowledge is to know God. Know thyself, that thou mayest know God; and know God, that thou mayest love him and be like him. In the one thou art initiated into wisdom; and in the other perfected in it.

Art | Character | God | Know thyself | Knowledge | Love | Philosophy | Wisdom | Art |

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

Better | Character | Idleness | Ignorance | Knowledge | Men | Nothing | Study |

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to remount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.

Character | Knowledge | Principles |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.

Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |

Samuel Smiles

"Knowledge is power," but... knowledge of itself, unless wisely directed, might merely make bad men more dangerous.

Character | Knowledge | Men | Power |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualification is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.

Benevolence | Character | Dignity | Elegance | Excellence | Giving | Human nature | Knowledge | Morality | Nature | Pain | Sense | Society | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Excellence | Think | Thought |

Sayings of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot or Pirqe Aboth) NULL

I grew up among wise man and found that there is nothing better for man than silence. Knowledge is not the main thing, but deeds.

Better | Character | Deeds | Knowledge | Man | Nothing | Silence | Wise |

Lord Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

There is no real love of virtue without the knowledge of public good.

Character | Good | Knowledge | Love | Public | Virtue | Virtue |

Sydney Smith

One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and to suffer all those pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts.

Character | Inferiority | Knowledge | Men | Study |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

Character | Greatness | Knowledge | Man | Morality | Practice | Time | Wisdom |