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

Immanuel Kant

Morality... must have the more power over the human heart the more purely it is exhibited. Whence it follows that, if the law of morality and the image of holiness and virtue are to exercise any influence at all on our souls, they can do so only so far as they are laid to heart in their purity as motives, unmixed with any view to prosperity, for it is in suffering that they display themselves most nobly.

Display | Heart | Influence | Law | Morality | Motives | Power | Prosperity | Purity | Suffering | Virtue | Virtue |

Immanuel Kant

When the thinking man has conquered the temptations to vice, and is conscious of having done his (often hard) duty, he finds himself in a state of peace and satisfaction which may well be called happiness, in which virtue is her own reward.

Duty | Man | Peace | Reward | Thinking | Virtue | Virtue |

Isaac Watts

Vice and virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and the other world.

God | Men | Sin | Virtue | Virtue | World | God |

Immanuel Kant

No virtue is ever so strong that it is beyond temptation.

Temptation | Virtue | Virtue |

Jeremy Bentham

On every in which virtue is exercised, if something is not added to happiness, something is taken away, form anxiety.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Virtue | Virtue |

Japanese Proverbs

Wisdom and virtue are like the two wheels of a cart.

Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Jeremy Bentham

On everything in which virtue is exercised, if something is not added to happiness, something is taken away form anxiety.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Virtue | Virtue |

James Bryant Conant

Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her, and zealously to labor after her wages is to receive them.

Labor | Receive | Virtue | Virtue |

James Bryant Conant

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every conquest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her; and zealously to labor after her ways is to receive them.

Conquest | Difficulty | Labor | Life | Life | Power | Receive | Virtue | Virtue |

John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

[The] men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.

Bible | Business | Computer | Growth | Men | Religion | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Business | Bible |

John Milton

Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.

Circumstances | Prudence | Prudence | Time | Virtue | Virtue |

John of Salisbury NULL

A recognition of truth and the practice of virtue is the title to security for both the individuals and the whole of mankind.

Mankind | Practice | Security | Title | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |

John of Salisbury NULL

Virtue cannot be fully attained without liberty and the absence of liberty proves that virtue in its full protection is wanting. Therefore a man is free in proportion to the measure of his virtues, and the extent to which he is free determines what his virtues can accomplish.

Absence | Liberty | Man | Virtue | Virtue |

John Rawls, fully John Bordley Rawls

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.

Citizenship | Freedom | Good | Justice | Reason | Right | Rights | Society | Thought | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Society | Loss |

John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"

These men of the technostructure are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.

Bible | Business | Computer | Growth | Men | Religion | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Business | Bible |

Joseph Addison

It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.

Business | Mind | Virtue | Virtue | Business |

Joseph Addison

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praise-worthy in human life.

Good | Life | Life | Men | Praise | Ridicule | Sense | Virtue | Virtue |

Joseph Addison

Honor's a sacred tie, the noble mind's distinguish perfection, that aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, and imitates her actions where she is not.

Distinguish | Honor | Mind | Perfection | Sacred | Virtue | Virtue |

Joseph Addison

Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. Vice is infamous, though in a prince; and virtue honorable, though in a peasant.

Ancestry | Good | Man | Title | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |