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

Madame Roland, Jeanne Manon Philon, born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skilled direct it.

Character | Opinion | Wise |

Philippe Quinault

It is not wise to be wiser than is necessary.

Character | Wise |

Charles Simmons

A wise man knows his own ignorance; a fool thinks he knows everything.

Character | Ignorance | Man | Wise |

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 |

William Makepeace Thackeray

To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings or pervades you, and intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar, if, dying, nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me.

Blessings | Character | Famous | Love | Memory | Soul | Sound |