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 Lamb

We grow gray in our spirit long before we grow gray in our hair.

Character | Spirit |

B. C. Kher

Both the saint and the scientist must possess the same qualities in order to attain their ideals. But these qualities are selfless devotion, a meticulous love of truth, infinite patience, thoroughness, and a depth of mind which does not resent criticism. Without these qualities neither of the two can reach his goal. It is my firm belief that the goal which both science and religion reach by different routes is one and the same.

Belief | Character | Criticism | Devotion | Ideals | Love | Mind | Order | Patience | Qualities | Religion | Science | Truth |

Sergei Kovalyov, also spelled Kovalev

I am here in order to fulfill the designs of my Creator as I understand them and to the best of my ability... Each one of us creates his own picture of the world, tortuously building an ideal in order to try to live in accordance with it. In that sense, there is no difference between a believer and an agnostic, since an ideal is something that, once raised, transcends man. Thus, we are here in order to “hoist our spirit without anchoring it upon anything,” as one of the ancient Chinese philosophers said. We must admit that that foundations are indeed shaky.

Ability | Agnostic | Character | Man | Order | Sense | Spirit | World | Understand |

Hal and Linda Kramer

... an emerging world based on cooperation rather than on competition, on affirmation rather than on competition, on affirmation of the human spirit rather than on self-doubt, and on the certainty that all humanity is connected.

Character | Competition | Cooperation | Doubt | Humanity | Self | Spirit | Wisdom | World |

Sinclair Lewis, fully Harry Sinclair Lewis

It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.

Character | Error | Life | Life | Need | Religion | Worth |

Walter Lippmann

There is nothing so bad but it can masquerade as moral... The whole speculation about morality is an effort to find a way of living which men who live it will instinctively feel is good.

Character | Effort | Good | Men | Morality | Nothing | Speculation | Will |

Luigi Luzzatti

The two essential factors of progress: morality and knowledge.

Character | Knowledge | Morality | Progress |

Watterson Lowe

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the face, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-interest, fear, despair - these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Character | Despair | Doubt | Enthusiasm | Fear | Ideals | People | Self | Self-interest | Soul | Spirit | Worry | Old |

Eda J. LeShan

We are not asking our children to do their own best but to be the best. Education is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. The majority of our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top.

Character | Children | Danger | Doctrine | Education | Failure | Fear | Majority | Religion | World | Danger | Failure |

Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

He will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times.

Character | Spirit | Will |

Samuel David Luzzatto, aka by acronym of SHaDaL or SHeDaL

Science does not make us happy; the highest morality alone is capable of conferring true happiness upon us.

Character | Happy | Morality | Science | Happiness |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises being inferior to himself to deities.

Character | Mind | Religion | Superstition |

William H. Masters

Science by itself has no moral dimension. But it does seek to establish truth. And upon this truth morality can be built.

Character | Morality | Science | Truth |