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

Francis Atterbury

Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it.

Character | Government | Mankind |

Jean de La Bruyère

The greatest part of mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable.

Character | Mankind |

Jean de La Bruyère

We meet with few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

Character | Mankind |

Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL

Some there are who are clear-sighted and do not need my teachings, and some whose eyes are clouded with dust who will not heed it though given, but between these two there are also some with but little dust in their eyes, who can be helped to see; and for the sake of these I will go back among mankind and teach.

Character | Little | Mankind | Need | Teach | Will |

Thomas Chalmers

Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. :You must go to the poor man’s cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.

Benevolence | Business | Character | Duty | Experience | Gentleness | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Men | Music | Poetry | Simplicity | Truth | Will | Business |

Samuel Butler

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly his character appear in spite of him.

Character | Literature | Man | Music | Work |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

There have been men who could play delightful music on one string of the violin, but there never was a man who could produce the harmonies of heaven in his soul by a one-stringed virtue.

Character | Heaven | Man | Men | Music | Play | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |

William Cowper

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, till half mankind were like himself possess’d.

Character | Mankind | Rest |

Albert Einstein

Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.

Character | Enemy | Force | Individual | Mankind | Opportunity | Power | Society | Terror | Society |

Henry Fielding

Perhaps the summary of good-breeding may be reduced to this rule. “Behave unto all men as you would they should behave to you.” This will most certainly oblige us to treat all mankind with the utmost civility and respect, there being nothing that we desire more than to be treated so by them.

Character | Civility | Desire | Good | Mankind | Men | Nothing | Respect | Rule | Will |

Henry Giles

The direct relation of music is not to ideas, but to emotions - in the works of its greatest masters, it is more marvelous, more mysterious than poetry.

Character | Emotions | Ideas | Music | Poetry | Wisdom |

Henry Fielding

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though alone; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

Character | Evil | Good | Justify | Man | Mankind | Right | Will | Wrong |

Henry Ford

He would really benefit mankind must reach them through their work.

Character | Mankind | Work |

William Feather

Laziness is the one common deficiency in mankind that blocks the establishment of a perfect world in which everyone leads a happy life.

Character | Happy | Laziness | Life | Life | Mankind | World |

Vardis Fisher, fully Vardis Alvero Fisher

Do people love truth? On the contrary, mankind has employed its subtlest ingenuity and intelligence in efforts to evade or conceal it... Do human beings love justice? The sordid travesties in our courts year after year suggest that they love justice only for themselves. Do they love peace? Can anyone seriously ask the question? Do they love freedom? Only for those who share their views. Love of peace, freedom, justice, truth - this is a myth that has been created by the folk mind, and if the artist does not look behind the myth to the reality, he will indeed wander amid the phantoms which he creates.

Character | Freedom | Ingenuity | Intelligence | Justice | Love | Mankind | Mind | Myth | Peace | People | Question | Reality | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Ingenuity |

Henry J. Golding

What our deepest self craves is not mere enjoyment, but some supreme purpose that will enlist all our powers and will give unity and direction to our life. We can never know the profoundest joy without a conviction that our life is significant - not a meaningless episode. The loftiest aim of human life is the ethical perfecting of mankind - the transfiguration of humanity.

Character | Enjoyment | Humanity | Joy | Life | Life | Mankind | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Unity | Will |

Robert Hall

The opportunities of making great sacrifices for the good of mankind are of rare occurrence; and he who remains inactive till it is in his power to confer signal benefits or yield important services is in imminent danger of incurring the doom of the slothful servant.

Character | Danger | Good | Important | Mankind | Power | Danger |

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

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.

Character | Knowledge | Mankind | Thought |