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

Thomas Chalmers

The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction; and to gain this repose it will often rather precipitate its conclusions than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system, a prejudice of the understanding which disposes it to include al the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities, and indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences.

Character | Experiment | Ignorance | Indolence | Love | Mind | Nature | Observation | Phenomena | Prejudice | Repose | Simplicity | System | Understanding | Will |

Frédéric Chopin, fully Frédéric François Chopin, born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin

Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.

Character | Difficulty | Repose | Will |

William Ellery Channing

Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power.

Character | Men | Power | Wise |

W. G. Cole

The wise man loves to believe nothing; the simple man to believe all things. The latter is credulous to others, the former to himself.

Character | Man | Nothing | Wisdom | Wise |

William Congreve

You read of but one wise man; and all that he knew was - that he knew nothing.

Character | Man | Nothing | Wise |

Yehuda Leib Chasman

Envy is such a part of many people’s personalities that it is not reasonable to expect them to completely eradicate this trait. Rather, they should channel it in a positive direction. Let them envy those with wisdom so they will try to gain more wisdom.

Character | Envy | People | Will | Wisdom |

Rabbi Chanina Bar Chama NULL

He whose deeds exceed his wisdom, his wisdom shall endure; but he whose wisdom exceeds his deeds, his wisdom will not endure.

Character | Deeds | Will | Wisdom | Deeds |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

There is no greater joy for a wise man than the joy of improving his character traits.

Character | Joy | Man | Wise |

Canassatego Treaty of Lancaster NULL

You who are so wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things. You will not therefore take it amiss if our ideas of the white man’s kind of education happens not to be the same as yours. We have had some experience with it. Several of our young people were brought up in your colleges. They were instructed in all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger. They didn’t know how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy. They spoke our language imperfectly. They were therefore unfit to be hunters, warriors, or counselors; they were good for nothing. We are, however, not less obliged for your kind offer, though we decline accepting it. To show our gratefulness, if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care with their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.

Care | Character | Education | Enemy | Experience | Good | Hunger | Ideas | Kill | Language | Man | Means | Men | Nations | Nothing | People | Will | Wise |

Harold C. Chase, Jr.

The wise person possesses humility. He knows that his small island of knowledge is surrounded by a vast sea of the unknown.

Character | Humility | Knowledge | Wise |

Geoffrey Chaucer

For how might sweetness ever have been known to him who never tasted bitterness? Felicity exists for those alone who first have suffered sorrow and distress... By opposites does one in wisdom grow.

Bitterness | Character | Distress | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes he is no longer indispensable.

Character | Indispensable | Man | Wisdom |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness.

Character | Sadness | Sin | Suffering | Wisdom |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

In the eyes of a wise person, illusory honor is very cheap. Wisdom enables a person to live a life of light and elevation, enabling him to leave pettiness behind.

Character | Honor | Life | Life | Light | Wisdom | Wise |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

Art | Character | Wealth | Wise |

Euripedes NULL

It is wise even in adversity to listen to reason.

Adversity | Character | Reason | Wise |

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie

All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.

Character | Hope | Wisdom | Words |

Euripedes NULL

Silence is an answer to a wise man.

Character | Man | Silence | Wise |

William Cowper

Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.

Character | Grace | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |