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

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The psyche is not of today. Its ancestry goes back many millions of years. Individual consciousness is only the flower and fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial root beneath the earth.

Ancestry | Character | Consciousness | Earth | Individual | Wisdom |

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 |

Donald Anderson Laird

Friendliness is contagious. The trouble is, many of us wait to catch it from someone else, when we might better be giving them a chance to catch it from us.

Better | Chance | Character | Giving | Trouble |

Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz

We are constantly repeating messages in our minds. If they are negative: “I’m a failure,” “The world is an awful place,” “Nothing ever goes right,” we make our lives miserable. We have the ability to consciously make an effort to repeat to our selves positive messages: “I have the ability to keep improving,” “The world contains many wonderful opportunities,” “Everything that happens to me can be used for growth”... Little by little they will have a positive effect on your personality and emotions.

Ability | Character | Effort | Emotions | Failure | Growth | Little | Nothing | Personality | Right | Will | World |

Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphans - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Battle | Care | Character | Charity | Firmness | God | Malice | Nations | Peace | Right | Work | God |

Harold Lewis, fully Harold "Hal" Warren Lewis

Fear and risk are different creatures. What some of us fear most - poison in our drinking water, radiation in our air, pesticides on our food - pose hardly any real risk, while some we fear least - driving, drinking and smoking - kill many hundreds of thousands each year.

Character | Fear | Kill | Risk |

George Henry Lewes

Among the many strong servilities mistaken for piety, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world and vilifying human nature.

Character | God | Human nature | Nature | Piety | World | God |

John Macduff

Prejudice is the conjurer of imaginary wrongs, strangling truth, overpowering reason, making strongmen weak and weak men weaker. God give us the large-hearted charity which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," which "thinketh no evil."

Character | Charity | Evil | God | Men | Prejudice | Reason | Truth | God |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment. The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts... Only when a person has peace of mind can he really feel love for humanity. Lack of peace of mind leads to animosity towards others. Peace of mind leads to love.

Absence | Anger | Blessings | Character | Humanity | Love | Mind | Peace | Resentment |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.

Appearance | Character | Dignity | Intelligence | Perseverance | Silence | Wisdom |

Nicolas Malebranche

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.

Character | Think |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.

Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

Character | People | Virtue | Virtue |

Francis Lockier

No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please, one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.

Character | Conversation | Will | Wisdom |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinct character. Some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitterness, and pride; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten by their spiritual vivacity.

Bitterness | Character | Pride | Sarcasm | Tenderness |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Ah, how happy would many lives be if individuals troubled themselves as little about other people’s affairs as about their own!

Character | Happy | Little | People |

Carey McWilliams

Tolerance is not acceptance, and indifference is not assimilation.

Acceptance | Character | Indifference |