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

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 |

Joseph von Auffenberg

He that does not respect confidence will never find happiness in his path. The belief in virtue vanishes from his heart; the source of nobler actions becomes extinct in him.

Belief | Character | Confidence | Heart | Respect | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Respect | Happiness |

Phillip Adams

When people say to me: "How do you do so many things?" I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: "How to you do so little?" It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever."

Character | Confidence | Little | Meaning | People |

Francis Atterbury

Affliction is a school of virtue: it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning.

Affliction | Character | Confidence | Virtue | Virtue |

Jean de La Bruyère

The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.

Character | Love | People | Self | Self-love | Wisdom |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.

Character | Consciousness | Self | Sensibility |

Jeremy Collier

Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.

Character | Confidence | Language | Security | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |

e. e. cummings, fully Edward Estlin Cummings

To be nobody-but-myself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

Battle | Character | Day | Fighting | Means | World |

Henry Giles

Esteem cannot be where there is no confidence, and there can be no confidence where there is no respect.

Character | Confidence | Esteem | Respect |

Felix Frankfurter

Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.

Aims | Candor | Character | Confidence | Ends | Fear | Freedom | Life | Life | Men | Security | Self | Society | Society |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others. A man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbor for what he sees in himself. As to the pure all things are pure, even so to the impure all things are impure.

Character | Confidence | Evil | Man |

William Henley, fully William Ernest Henley

It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul... Out of the night that covers me, black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

Character | Fate | Soul |

Leigh Mitchell Hodges

Life begins each morning... Each night of life is a wall between to-day and the past. Each morning is the open door to a new world - new vistas, new aims, new tryings.

Aims | Character | Day | Life | Life | Past | World |

Thomas Jefferson

Men are naturally divided into two parties: (1) those who fear and distrust the people... (2) those who identify themselves with people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider than as the most honest and safe.

Character | Confidence | Distrust | Fear | Men | People | Safe |

Frederick Dan Huntington

There’ll be no night in Heav’n, In that blest world above; No anxious toil, no weary hours; For labor there is love. There’ll be no sorrow there, There’ll be no sorrow there, In Heav’n above, where all is love, There’ll be no sorrow there. There’ll be no grief in Heav’n, For life is one glad day, And tears are those of former things Which all have passed way. There’ll be no sin in Heav’n; Behold that blessèd throng, All holy in their spotless robes, All holy in their song.

Action | Character | Conduct | Devotion | Faith | Good | Grief | Labor | Life | Life | Love | Sin | Sorrow | Suffering | Tears | Work | World | Blessed |