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

Metastasio, aka Pietro Petastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi NULL

O, how full of error is the judgment of mankind. They wonder at results when they are ignorant of the reasons. They call it fortune when they know not the cause, and thus worship their own ignorance changed into a deity.

Cause | Error | Fortune | Ignorance | Judgment | Mankind | Wisdom | Wonder | Worship |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our powers of judgment are more completely exposed by being overpraised than by being unjustly underestimated.

Blame | Conscience | Judgment | Praise | Reason | Wisdom |

Francis Quarles

If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confine thee. He that thinks he can never speak enough, may easily speak too much. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.

Enough | Wisdom | Words |

Publius Syrus

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage... I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

Silence | Speech | Will | Wisdom |

Jeremy Taylor

Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of meditation and recessions from that duty; according as we neglect meditation, so are our prayers imperfect, meditation being the soul of prayer and the intention of our spirit.

Duty | Intention | Language | Meditation | Neglect | Prayer | Soul | Spirit | Wisdom |

Arthur Warwick

The speech of the tongue is best known to men; God best understands the language of the heart.

God | Heart | Language | Men | Speech | Wisdom | God |

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

The certitude of laws is an obscurity of judgment backed only by authority.

Authority | Judgment | Obscurity | Obscurity | Wisdom |

Ambrose, aka Saint Ambrose, fully Aurelius Ambrosius NULL

Mercy is not ordinarily held to consist in pronouncing judgment on another man’s deserts, but in relieving his necessities; in giving aid to the poor, not in inquiring how good they are.

Aid | Giving | Good | Judgment | Man | Mercy |

John M. Wilson, fully John Moulder Wilson

Are you willing to think? Consider carefully, for the answer to that question will largely determine your success or failure in life. If you develop your judgment, use it. Exercise your power of judgment as often as you can, for the first rule of good judgment is practice. The functions of your mind, no less than the muscles of your body, receive their strength through repeated use.

Body | Failure | Good | Judgment | Life | Life | Mind | Power | Practice | Question | Receive | Rule | Strength | Success | Will | Wisdom | Failure |

R. L. Bruckberger, fully Raymond Léopold Bruckberger

If the Day of Judgment came tomorrow, and God asked us what we had made of His revelation, of His grace and our freedom… we would be hard put to it to explain the advantages of a machine civilization whose highest efficiency is used for murder and slavery.

Civilization | Day | Efficiency | Freedom | God | Grace | Judgment | Murder | Revelation | Slavery | Tomorrow | God | Murder |

Dandemis NULL

Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.

Judgment | Wrong |

Carl von Clausewitz, fully Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, also Karl von Clausewitz

Courage is of two kinds: first, physical courage, or courage in the presence of danger to the person; and next, moral courage, or courage before responsibility, whether it be before the judgment seat of external authority, or of the inner power, the conscience.

Authority | Conscience | Courage | Danger | Judgment | Power | Responsibility | Danger |

P. T. Forsyth, fully Peter Taylor Forsyth

War is the greatest of all the awful and complex moral situations of the world - second only to the final judgment day… It is a moral pestilence. It is wrong on both sides.

Day | Judgment | War | World | Wrong |

Emmet Fox

In the Bible the word “wicked” really means “bewitched” or “under a spell.” The Judgment is not a great trial to take place at the end of time; it is a process that goes on every day.

Bible | Day | Judgment | Means | Time | Trial | Bible |

Benjamin Franklin

One’s true happiness depends more upon one’s own judgment of one’s self, or a consciousness of rectitude in action and intention, and the approbation of those few, who judge impartially, than upon the applause of the unthinking, undiscerning multitude, who are apt to cry Hosanna today, and tomorrow, Crucify him.

Action | Applause | Consciousness | Intention | Judgment | Self | Tomorrow | Happiness |

Ellen Goodman

We are at ease with a moral judgment made against someone’s private sin - lust or greed. We are much less comfortable judging someone’s public ethic - those decisions that can lead to such outcomes as aggression, the abuse of the environment, the neglect of the needy.

Abuse | Aggression | Greed | Judgment | Lust | Neglect | Public | Sin |