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

Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland

Every man’s power have relation to some kind of work; and whenever he finds that kind of work which we can do best - that to which his powers are best adapted - he finds that which will give him the best development, and that by which he can best build up, or make, his manhood.

Character | Man | Power | Will | Work |

Rollo C. Hester

In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning.

Character | Cleanliness | Confidence | Courtesy | Discipline | Enthusiasm | Health | Honesty | Initiative | Inspiration | Joy | Modesty | Patience | Perseverance | Power | Simplicity | Struggle | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Privilege | Value |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Deliverance is out of time into eternity, and is achieved by obedience and docility to the eternal Nature of Things. We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a “state of grace.” All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine Reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it.

Character | Docility | Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Free will | Grace | Nature | Obedience | Order | Power | Reality | Self | Spirit | Time | Will |

David Hume

The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of deformity of vice, and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one and embrace the other. But is this ever to be expected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding, which of themselves have no hold of the affections, or set in motion the active powers of men? They discover truths: but where the truths which they discover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no influence on conduct and behavior.

Beauty | Behavior | Character | Conduct | Desire | Duty | Influence | Men | Teach | Understanding | Virtue | Virtue | Beauty | Truths |

William James

Men habitually use only a small part of the power they possess and which they might use under appropriate circumstances.

Character | Circumstances | Men | Power |

David Hume

Custom is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared I the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

Action | Character | Custom | Ends | Events | Experience | Future | Influence | Life | Life | Means | Memory | Past | Present | Speculation |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Faith is a pre-condition of all systematic knowing, all purposive doing and all decent living. Societies are held together, not primarily by the fear of the many for the coercive power of the few, but by a widespread faith in the other fellow’s decency.

Character | Faith | Fear | Knowing | Power |

William James

We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |

David Hume

All beings in the universe, consider’d in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other. ‘Tis only by experience we learn their influence and connexion.

Character | Experience | Influence | Universe | Learn |

David Hume

It is universally allowed that nothing exists without a cause of its existence, and that chance, when strictly examined, is a mere negative word, and means not any real power which has anywhere a being in nature. But it is pretended that some causes are necessary, some not necessary.

Cause | Chance | Character | Existence | Means | Nature | Nothing | Power |

Maria Jane Jewsbury

Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character; gives higher motive and nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous. The power to love truly and devotedly is the nobles gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols.

Action | Character | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Man | Power | Sacred | Self | Woman |

David Hume

Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar’d to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind: and this discovery in morals, like that other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences; tho’, like that too it has little or no influence on practice.

Character | Discovery | Influence | Little | Mind | Philosophy | Practice | Qualities | Virtue | Virtue | Discovery |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Every time you speak, you influence the world. You are either building it up or tearing it down.

Character | Influence | Time | World |

Thomas Jefferson

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

Character | Power | Happiness |

Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.

Character | Desire | God | Humility | Man | Nothing | Power | Silence | Soul | Wishes |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Power |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Genuine self-government is possible only in very small groups, societies on a national or super-national scale will always be ruled by oligarchical minorities, whose members come to power because they have a lust for power.

Character | Government | Lust | Power | Self | Will |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Character | Men | Power | Wisdom |

Edward S. "Ned" Jordan

Men in general are too material and do not make enough human contacts. If we search for the fundamentals which actually motivate us, we will find that they come under four headings: love, money, adventure and religion. It is to some of them that we always owe that big urge which pushes us onward. Men who crush these impulses and settle down to everyday routine are bound to sink into mediocrity. No man is a complete unity of himself; he needs the contact, the stimulus and the driving power which is generated by his contact with other men, their ideas and constantly changing scenes.

Adventure | Character | Enough | Ideas | Love | Man | Mediocrity | Men | Money | Power | Religion | Search | Unity | Will |