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

Christopher Society NULL

It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Better | Character | Darkness | Light |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

This is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.

Character | Evil | Man |

John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends.

Better | Character | Friend | Heaven | Joy | Light | Words |

William Ellery Channing

No evil is intolerable but a guilty conscience.

Character | Conscience | Evil | Guilty |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

In the eyes of a wise person, illusory honor is very cheap. Wisdom enables a person to live a life of light and elevation, enabling him to leave pettiness behind.

Character | Honor | Life | Life | Light | Wisdom | Wise |

Pierre Cornielle

In a noble soul, merit alone should light the flame of love.

Character | Light | Love | Merit | Soul | Wisdom |

Joseph Francis Eduard Desmahis

We cannot do evil to others without doing it to ourselves.

Character | Evil |

Tyron Edwards

Preventives of evil are far better than remedies; cheaper and easier of application, and surer of result.

Better | Character | Evil |

Euripedes NULL

Goodness can be taught, and any man who knows what goodness is knows evil too, because he judges from the good.

Character | Evil | Good | Man |

Shneur Zalman of Liadi

A little light will dispel much darkness.

Character | Darkness | Light | Little | Will |

Albert Einstein

The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit in man.

Character | Ethics | Evil | Man | Men | Spirit |

Tyron Edwards

The influences of little things are as real, and as constantly about us, as the air we breathe or the light by which we see. These are the small - the often invisible - the almost unthought of strands, which are inweaving and twisting by millions, to bind us to character - to good or evil here, and to heaven or hell hereafter.

Character | Evil | Good | Heaven | Hell | Light | Little |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Sordid and infamous sensuality , the most dreadful evil that issued from the box of Pandora, corrupts every heart, and eradicates every virtue.

Character | Evil | Heart | Sensuality | Virtue | Virtue |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am fully convinced that the soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

Character | Eternity | Light | Reality | Soul | Will | Wisdom |

Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux

All the evil in the world is the fault of the self-styled pure in heart, a result of their eagerness to unearth secrets and expose them to the light of the sun.

Character | Evil | Fault | Heart | Light | Self | World | Fault |

Henry Fielding

We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.

Balance | Censure | Character | Evil | Good | Inquiry | Judgment | Mankind | Praise |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

Character | Life | Life | Light | Power |

John Cunningham Geikie

Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.

Character | Evil | Good | Life | Life |