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

Arthur Aughey

Cheerfulness sharpens the edge and removes the rust from the mind. A joyous heart supplies oil to our inward machinery, and makes the whole of our powers work with ease and efficiency.

Character | Cheerfulness | Efficiency | Heart | Mind | Work |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

Obedience to duty means resistance to self.

Character | Duty | Means | Obedience | Self | Wisdom |

Francis Atterbury

A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good.

Character | Good | Means |

Berthold Auerbach

Garden work consists more in uprooting weeds than in planting seed. This applies also to teaching.

Character | Work |

Lord Acton, John Emerich Dalberg-Acton

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

Character | Liberty | Means | Wisdom |

George Matthew Adams

Upon every hand we meet with those who have some secret resentment that is ever being nurtured within their hearts. They resent the success, or happiness of some one whom they think is less deserving than they are. They resent the just recognition that comes to others from work and long effort to excel. Or, they may resent being born poor - or resent the fact that they were even born!... Strive to excel, strive to achieve, where others have failed, and you will find no space within your mind to lodge resentment. Resentment is the child of selfishness, foolish envy, and inactivity... Our life upon this earth is too valuable for resentment of any kind. There is so much to do, so much to learn - so little time in which to live and work it all out.

Character | Earth | Effort | Envy | Inactivity | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Resentment | Selfishness | Space | Success | Time | Will | Work | Child | Happiness | Learn | Think |

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, aka Maggid of Mezeritch

I cannot teach you the ten principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are. From the child you can learn three things: He is merry for no particular reason; never for a moment is he idle; when he needs something, he demands it vigorously. The thief can instruct you in seven things: He does his service by night; if he does not finish what he has set out to do, in one night, he devotes the next night to it; he and those who work with him love one another; he risks his life for small gains; what he takes has so little value for him that he gives it up for a very small coin; he endures blows and hardship, and it matters nothing to him; he likes his trade and would not exchange it for any other.

Character | Life | Life | Little | Love | Nothing | Principles | Reason | Service | Teach | Work | Child | Learn | Value |

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, born Ferdinand Lewis "Lew" Alcinder, Jr.

The reason we’re here is to exercise personal responsibility, to evolve the higher self and to influence that development in others.

Character | Influence | Reason | Responsibility | Self |

Isaac Barrow

If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man’s enmity needlessly; since any man’s love may be useful, and every man’s hatred is dangerous.

Character | Desire | Good | Love | Man | Means | Men | Will |

Max Beerbohm, fully Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm

To say that a man is vain simply means that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.

Character | Man | Means | People |

Tristan Bernard, born Paul Bernard

Your actions, in passing, pass not away, for every good work is a gain of seed for eternal life.

Character | Eternal | Good | Life | Life | Work |

Honoré de Balzac

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gait, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius.

Character | Disrespect | Effort | Genius | Gentleness | Little | Looks | Man | Manners | Mind | Simplicity | Thought |

Aśvaghoṣa NULL

The purpose of this discipline is to bring man into the habit of applying the insight that has come to him as the result of the preceding disciplines. When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one’s mind on the act and the doing of it, not on one’s relation to the act, or its character or value. One should think: there is walking, there is stopping, there is realizing; not, I am walking, I am doing this, it is a good thing, it is disagreeable, I am gaining merit, it is I who am realizing how wonderful it is. Thence come vagrant thoughts, feelings of elation or of failure and unhappiness. Instead of all this, one should simply practice concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquillity of mind, realization, insight and Wisdom; and one should follow the practice in faith, willingness and gladness. After long practice the bondage of old habits become weakened and disappears, and in its place appear confidence, satisfaction, awareness and tranquillity. What is the Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and mortificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individual’s instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges - the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish one’s personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances.

Anger | Awareness | Character | Confidence | Control | Discipline | Enlightenment | Failure | Faith | Fear | Feelings | Good | Greed | Habit | Individual | Insight | Lust | Man | Means | Merit | Mind | Personality | Practice | Pride | Purpose | Purpose | Tranquility | Understanding | Unhappiness | Will | Wisdom | Failure | Awareness | Old |

Arthur Burns, fully Arthur Frank Burns

In addition to the inflation, we have stagnating productivity. People don’t work the way they used to.

Character | People | Work |

Hugh Blair

Willingness to be taught what we do not know, is the sure pledge of growth both in knowledge and wisdom.

Character | Growth | Knowledge | Wisdom |

Margaret Bourke-White

Only by his action can a man make (himself/his life) whole... You are responsible for what you have done and the people whom you have influenced. In the end it is only the work that counts.

Action | Character | Life | Life | Man | People | Work |