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

George Canning

Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation.

Character | Forbearance | Magnanimity | Obligation | Practice | Thankfulness | Virtue | Virtue |

John Locke

All the Actions, that we have any Idea of, reducing themselves, as has been said, to these two, viz. Thinking and Motion, so far as a Man has a power to think, or not to think; to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a Man Free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a Man’s power; wherever doing or not doing, will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not Free, though perhaps the Action may be voluntary.

Action | Character | Forbearance | Man | Mind | Power | Preference | Thinking | Will |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Power is so characteristically calm that calmness in itself has the aspect of power, and forbearance implies strength. The orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous.

Calmness | Forbearance | Power | Strength | Weapons | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

Pity and forbearance should characterize all acts of justice.

Forbearance | Justice | Pity | Wisdom |

J. Martin Klotsche

Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning "between" and legere meaning "to choose." An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned "to choose between." He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.

Arrogance | Better | Compassion | Confidence | Cruelty | Evil | Fear | Forbearance | Gentleness | Good | Hate | Ignorance | Intelligence | Intolerance | Love | Meaning | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Words |

Edmund Burke

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Forbearance | Virtue | Virtue |

Edmund Burke

There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

Forbearance | Virtue | Virtue |

Richard Mant

Insensibility, in return for acts of seeming, even of real, unkindness, is not required of us. But, whilst we feel for such acts, let our feelings be tempered with forbearance and kindness. Let not the sense of our own sufferings render us peevish and morose. Let not our sense of neglect on the part of others induce us to judge of them with harshness and severity. Let us be indulgent and compassionate towards them. Let us seek for apologies for their conduct. Let us be forward in endeavoring to excuse them. And if, in the end, we must condemn them, let us look for the cause of their delinquency, less in a defect of kind intention than in the weakness and errors of human nature. He who knoweth of what we are made, and hath learned, by what he himself suffered, the weakness and frailty of our nature, hath thus taught us to make compassionate allowances for our brethren, in consideration of its manifold infirmities.

Cause | Consideration | Feelings | Forbearance | Intention | Neglect | Sense | Weakness |

Robertson Davies

If people need a book to tell them that in marriage kindness and forbearance are necessary, and that the sexual act is happier when it is undertaken to give pleasure as well as to receive it, these books are what they want. Possibly people so lacking in understanding of themselves and others do not mind being addressed in the coarse, grainy prose of the marriage counselor.

Books | Forbearance | Kindness | Marriage | Mind | Need | People | Pleasure | Receive | Understanding |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive

Action | Failure | Forbearance | Will | Failure |

Saint Vincent de Paul

I can understand that the man you told me about has offended you, and I am very annoyed that he forgot himself like that. However, you must not consider what he did as coming from him but rather as a trial which God wishes to make of your patience. This virtue will be even more a virtue in you who are more sensitive by nature and have given less cause for the offense that you have received.

Forbearance | Grace | Kindness | Little | Reconciliation |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.

Culture | Forbearance |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.

Control | Enough | Forbearance | Government | Individual | Justice | Nations | Principles | Respect | Rest | Wrong | Government | Respect | Trouble |

Tokugawa Ieyasu

When you go into the country hawking, you learn to understand the military spirit and also the hard life of the lower classes. You exercise your muscles and train your limbs. You have any amount of walking and running and become quite indifferent to heat and cold, and so you are little likely to suffer from any illness.

Forbearance |

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Life means that I can live to see tomorrow.

Fault | Forbearance | Imperfection | Journey | Will | Woe | Fault |

William Godwin

The true standard of the conduct of one man towards another is justice.

Forbearance | Man | Right | Rights |