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

Jacob Bohme, or Jacob Behmen or Jakob Böhme

Spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated from one intellect to another, but must be sought for in the spirit of God.

Character | God | Knowledge | Spirit | Intellect |

H. B.

I live in the world, but I seem to myself not of it!.. Natural phenomena are but the shadows of the spirit form which they spring, as the human face changes under the influence of love, hatred or fear... When, O when, shall I be able to reveal its poetry? I see everywhere and in ever object unceasing motion, and in that motion a creative force forever and forever repeating and re-repeating the same simple process as to infinity. Through all nature the grand rhythms roll and heaven and earth are filled with the melody. Men are but boys chasing shadows. The spiritual significance of the world none seem to see - the infinite simplicity of its process are none care to understand.

Boys | Care | Character | Earth | Fear | Force | Heaven | Influence | Love | Melody | Men | Nature | Object | Phenomena | Poetry | Simplicity | Spirit | World |

Mateo Alemán, fully Mateo Alemán y de Enero

That poverty which is not the daughter of the spirit is but the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is a man’s greatest foe.

Character | Daughter | Evil | Good | Man | Mother | Poverty | Shame | Spirit |

Richard Alleine

There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart.

Character | Conscience | Heart | Tenderness | Will |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.

Body | Character | Fame | Fortune | Judgment | Life | Life | Oblivion | Perception | Soul | Time |

Simeon ben Azai, sometimes Ben Azai

The reward of doing one duty is the power to do another.

Character | Duty | Power | Reward |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

A rational nature admits of nothing but what is serviceable to the rest of mankind.

Character | Mankind | Nature | Nothing | Rest |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examinations, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not that which he thinks and says and does.

Character | Consciousness | Greatness | Life | Life | Man | Obedience | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Rule | Self | Think |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Your disposition will be suitable to that which you most frequently think on; for the soul is, as it were, tinged with the color and complexion of its own thoughts.

Character | Soul | Will | Think |

Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon, aka Rabbi Avraham Maimuni, aka Rabbeinu Avraham ben ha-Rambam NULL

Be careful not to consider yourself wicked. A person who considers himself wicked will not try to improve and is likely to become worse than he is now.

Character | Will |

Bias NULL

It is better to decide between our enemies than our friends; for one of our friends will most likely become our enemy; but on the other hand, one of your enemies will probably become your friend.

Better | Character | Enemy | Friend | Will | Friends |

Bruce Bliven

Perhaps the most important lesson the world has learned in the past fifty years is that it is not true that "human nature is unchangeable."

Character | Human nature | Important | Lesson | Nature | Past | World |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources. In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion should be left open. They will carry over to the enemy nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an encumbrance when once the sword is drawn.

Character | Courage | Cowardice | Enemy | Nothing | Will | Wisdom |

Georg Brandes, fully Georg Morris Cohen Brandes

The crowd will follow a leader who marches twenty paces ahead of them, but if he is a thousand paces ahead of them, they will neither see nor follow him.

Character | Will | Wisdom | Leader |

Phillips Brooks

No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good, without the world being the better for it, without somebody being helped an comforted by the very existence of that goodness.

Better | Character | Existence | Good | Man | Woman | World |

Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL

Who ever lives looking for pleasure only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his enjoyments, idle and weak, the tempter will certainly overcome him, as the wind blows down a weak tree.

Character | Pleasure | Will |