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

Sayings of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot or Pirqe Aboth) NULL

I grew up among wise man and found that there is nothing better for man than silence. Knowledge is not the main thing, but deeds.

Better | Character | Deeds | Knowledge | Man | Nothing | Silence | Wise |

Albert Schweitzer

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red light... The truly wise person is colorblind.

Character | Light | Wise |

Shimon HaTzaddik

For his entire life he was in the company of wise men and Of all the things beneficial to one’s body, silence is the best. [paraphrase]

Body | Character | Life | Life | Men | Silence | Wise |

Robert Southey

A good man and a wise man may, at times, be angry with the world, and at times grieved for it; but no man was ever discontented with the world if he did his duty in it.

Character | Duty | Good | Man | Wise | World |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

A wise man should have money in his head, not in his heart.

Character | Heart | Man | Money | Wise |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Wise |

Thomas Tickell

Vain man would trace the mystic maze with foolish wisdom, arguing, charge his God, his balance hold, and guide his angry rod, new-mould the spheres, and mend the skies’ design, and sound th’ immense with his short scanty line. Do thou, my soul, the destined period wait, when God shall solve the dark decrees of fate, His now unequal dispensation clear, and make all wise and beautiful appear.

Balance | Character | Design | Fate | God | Man | Soul | Sound | Wisdom | Wise | God |

Antisthenes NULL

A wise man will always be contented with his condition, and will live rather according to the precepts of virtue, than according to the customs of his country.

Man | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Wise |

Hotzoas Chochmah Umassar

The wise man knows his wisdom is limited, but the fool thinks he knows everything.

Character | Man | Wisdom | Wise |

Hotzoas Chochmah Umassar

A wise man said, “Most people do not feel bad because they lack wisdom; they feel bad because people say they lack wisdom.”

Character | Man | People | Wisdom | Wise |

Richard Whately

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is truly a wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.

Abuse | Character | Envy | Man | Object | Public | Service | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wise |