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

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

As faintness is a disease of the body, so is vice a sickness of the mind. Wherefore, since we judge those that have corporal infirmities to be rather worthy of compassion than hatred, much more are they to be pitied, and not abhorred, whose minds are oppressed with wickedness, the greatest malady that may be.

Body | Character | Compassion | Disease | Mind | Wickedness | Vice |

Jean de La Bruyère

Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.

Character | Enemy | Friend | Nothing | Wise |

Jean de La Bruyère

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.

Character | Men | Value |

Samuel Butler

To have the power to forgive, is empire and prerogative, and ‘tis in crowns a nobler gem, to grant a pardon than condemn.

Character | Pardon | Power |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

The knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity.

Character | Knowledge | Will |

William Ellery Channing

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

Character | Men | Power | Wise |

William Pitt, Lord Chatham or Lord William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, aka The Elder Pitt and The Great Commander

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor; and this I know, that, where law ends, there tyranny begins.

Character | Ends | Law | Power | Tyranny |

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 |

Randle Cotgrave

Love and knowledge live not together.

Character | Knowledge | Love |

Horace Bushnell

Respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it to the bitter end, and there is ignominy as well as guilt eternal.

Character | Crime | Eternal | Guilt | Ignominy | Mother | Sin |

Stuart Cloete, fully Edward Fairly Stuart Graham

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Character | Happy |

Richard Cecil

The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves.

Character | Heart | Self | Sin | Spirit | Worship |

Erika Chopich and Margaret Paul

All of our controlling behavior - our anger, blame, pouting, teaching, explaining, caretaking, compliance, and denial - comes from believing that we can control what others think of us and how they treat us, and that how they think of us and treat us defines us.

Anger | Behavior | Blame | Character | Compliance | Control | Think |