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

Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.

Faith | Man | Reason | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Wise |

William Cullen Bryant

Much has been said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.

Action | Age | Danger | Difficulty | Mankind | Old age | Power | Strength | Time | Wisdom | Wise | Old |

Henry H. Buckley

Mistakes are costly and somebody must pay. The time to correct a mistake is before a mistake is made. The causes of mistakes are first, "I didn't know"; second, "I didn't think"; third, "I didn't care."

Care | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |

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

"Know thyself," said the old philosopher, "improve thyself," saith the new. Our great object in time is not to waste our passions and gifts on the things external that we must leave behind, but that we cultivate within us all that we can carry into the eternal progress beyond.

Eternal | Know thyself | Object | Progress | Time | Waste | Wisdom | Old |

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

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow time enough to consider it when it becomes today.

Body | Day | Enough | Ideas | Mind | Time | Wisdom |

Karl Bühler, fully Karl Ludwig Bühler

By the time the child can draw more that scribble, by the age of four or five years, an already well-formed body of conceptual knowledge formulated in language dominates his memory and controls his graphic work. Drawings are graphic accounts of essentially verbal processes. As an essentially verbal education gains control, the child abandons his graphic efforts and relies almost entirely on words. Language has first spoilt drawing and then swallowed it up completely.

Age | Body | Control | Education | Knowledge | Language | Memory | Time | Wisdom | Words | Work | Child |

Francis Scott Bradford

Man, though chained to earth, looks across time and space toward an unknown perfection which he may never reach but will forever seek.

Earth | Looks | Man | Perfection | Space | Time | Will | Wisdom |

Catherine Bowen, née Catherine Shober Drinker

Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness.

Time | Wisdom |

Georg Brandes, fully Georg Morris Cohen Brandes

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.

Humanity | Inheritance | Time | Truth | Wisdom |

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all; while fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order. Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be, even however infinite: when they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, Fate sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence. The working of this unified development in time is called Fate. These are different, but the one hangs upon the other. For this order, which is ruled by Fate, emanates from the directness of Providence.

Fate | God | Intelligence | Means | Mind | Order | Providence | Reason | Time | Wisdom | Fate |

John Christian Bovee

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered. The Chinese say, "The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fall."

Character | Error | Glory | Judgment | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |

Phillips Brooks

Heaven is not to sweep our truths away, but only to turn them till we see their glory, to open them till we see their truth, and to unveil our eyes till for the first time we shall really see them.

Glory | Heaven | Time | Truth | Wisdom | Truths |

Noah Weinberg, fully Rabbi Yisrael Noah Weinberg

Killing time is suicide on the installment plan.

Plan | Suicide | Time | Wisdom |

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

There is no such thing as luck. It's a fancy name for being always at our duty, and so sure to be ready when good time comes.

Duty | Good | Luck | Time | Wisdom |

Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton

Conscience is a great ledger book in which all our offenses are written and registered, and which time reveals to the sense and feeling of the offender.

Conscience | Sense | Time | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.

Day | Knowledge | Study | Time | Wisdom |