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

Elihu Root

Moral disarmament is to safe-guard the future; material disarmament is to save the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.

Character | Future | Present | Safe |

Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL

Every man is the architect of his own future (fortune).

Character | Fortune | Future | Man |

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 |

William Gilmore Simms

Have I done anything for society? I have then done more for myself. Let that truth be always present to thy mind, and work without cessation.

Character | Mind | Present | Society | Truth | Work |

Frederick K. Stamm

When no new thoughts fill the mind - when no horizons beckon - when life is in the past, not in the future - you are on the way to uselessness.

Character | Future | Life | Life | Mind | Past |

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.

Character | Heart | Prejudice |

Avraham Yellin

When looking back at your past suffering, feel joy. They have already benefited you by atoning for your misdeeds and at present you no longer feel pain from those past misfortunes.

Character | Joy | Pain | Past | Present | Suffering |

Daniel Webster

We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral influence, the influence of public opinion, and the influence of the principles to which great men - the lights of the world, and of the present age - have given their sanction.

Age | Character | Influence | Men | Opinion | Power | Present | Principles | Public | World |

Mendel Zabaraz

Only fools waste their present moments regretting what is over and done with. They will constantly say, “If only I hadn’t gotten involved in this venture, I wouldn’t have suffered.” “If only I would have stayed an hour longer, this would not have happened.” We are not prophets and there is no possible way to know in advance exactly what will be. Try to protect yourself from harm, but realize we can never plan for every contingency.

Character | Harm | Plan | Present | Waste | Will |

George Matthew Adams

We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves.

Time | Waste | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

Future | Past | Present | Wisdom |

John Welwood

Look at our present life circumstances, whatever they may be, as the raw material of our learning... We must stop regarding ourselves as victims of circumstances, and start to acknowledge that we are not here purely by accident. The master within is trying to help us wake up by confronting us with our current life situation, which contains all the lessons we need to learn in order to grow into more fully developed human beings.

Accident | Character | Circumstances | Learning | Life | Life | Need | Order | Present | Learn |

William Wordsworth

The eye - it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where ’er they be, against or with our will.

Character | Will |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

If we conceive of some point of time which cannot be divided into even the minutes parts of moments, that is the only point that can be called present: and that point flees at such lightning speed from being future to being past, that it has no extent of duration at all.

Future | Past | Present | Time | Wisdom |