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

Barthold Niebuhr, fully Barthold Georg Neibuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

Character | Faith | Good | History | Hope | Love | Nothing | Sense | Worth |

Plotinus NULL

Memory, in point of fact, is impeded by the body: even as things are, addition often brings forgetfulness; with thinning and clearing away, memory will often revive. The soul is stability; the shifting and fleeting thing which body is can be a cause only of its forgetting not of its remembering - Lethe stream may be understood in this sense - and memory is a fact of the soul.

Body | Cause | Character | Forgetfulness | Memory | Sense | Soul | Will |

Maurice Nicoll

We live in a narrow reality, partly conditioned by our form of perception and partly made by opinions that we have borrowed, to which our self-esteem is fastened. We fight for our opinions, not because we believe them but because they involve the ordinary feeling of oneself. Though we are continually being hurt owing to the narrowness of the reality in which we dwell, we blame life, and do not see the necessity of finding absolutely new standpoints. All ideas that have a transforming power change our sense of reality.

Blame | Change | Character | Esteem | Ideas | Life | Life | Necessity | Perception | Power | Reality | Self | Self-esteem | Sense |

Alexander Pope

What thin partitions sense from thought divide.

Character | Sense | Thought | Thought |

William Safire

A sense of moral glue, constantly subject to stress.

Character | Sense |

Charles Reade

Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Character | Destiny | Habit |

Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

Character | Habit | Laziness | Nothing |

Raymond Radiguet

It is not in novelty but in habit that we find the greatest pleasure.

Character | Habit | Novelty | Pleasure | Novelty |

Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

An overemphasis on temporal security is a compensation for a loss of the sense of eternal security.

Character | Compensation | Eternal | Security | Sense | Loss |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.

Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |

Sydney Smith

That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. this is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled; this is that charity which no labor can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers; that is seen by no man, and honored by no man, but, like the great laws of Nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to a future and better world for its reward.

Better | Character | Charity | Duty | Future | God | Hope | Ingratitude | Labor | Looks | Man | Nature | Reward | Sense | Silence | Work | World | God |

William Gilmore Simms

The only true source of politeness is consideration, that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others.

Character | Consideration | Rights | Sense | Politeness |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualification is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.

Benevolence | Character | Dignity | Elegance | Excellence | Giving | Human nature | Knowledge | Morality | Nature | Pain | Sense | Society | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Excellence | Think | Thought |

Gordon Van Sauter

Never allow your sense of self to become associated with your sense of job. If your job vanishes your self doesn’t.

Character | Self | Sense |

Yitzchok Isaac Sher

A person easily becomes a slave to his habits. The most difficult habits to break are the habits of thinking in a certain manner. You can have a large amount of control over yourself by working to obtain positive habits. Even with habits of thoughts, we have the ability to utilize the power of habit to form the habit of thinking rationally and productively, and to elevate our thoughts to such a degree that we will have changed our entire thought patterns for the better.

Ability | Better | Character | Control | Habit | Power | Thinking | Thought | Will | Thought |