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

Maurice Nicoll

Is it not only through the recognition of scale (faith) in ourselves that we can escape from the negation of life?

Character | Faith | Life | Life |

Theodore T. Munger

The habit of saving is itself an education; it fosters every virtue, teaches self-denial, cultivates the sense of order, trains to forethought, and so broadens the mind.

Character | Education | Forethought | Habit | Mind | Order | Self | Self-denial | Sense | Virtue | Virtue |

Maurice Nicoll

Death is a fact in our natural reality - that is, in our sense-given experience of life - and as long as we cannot understand that we apprehend though the senses only a minute part of total existence and reality, we cannot escape from the violent effect of its suggestion.

Character | Death | Existence | Experience | Life | Life | Reality | Sense | Understand |

J. C. Penney, formally James Cash Penney

The best way to stop a bad habit is never to begin it.

Character | Habit |

Anna Maria Porter

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures.

Character | Habit | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness | Thought |

Ronald E. Osborn

When the taste is purified, the morals are not easily corrupted. Whatever injures the body, the morals, or the mind, will lessen or vitiate taste; thus, disorders of the body and violent passions of the mind, will do this, and so will also excessive care or covetousness; but above all, a habit of intemperance, and keeping low company will greatly deprave that which was once a good taste.

Body | Care | Character | Good | Habit | Intemperance | Mind | Taste | Will |

Charles Reade

Sow an act and you reap a habit. Sow a habit and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.

Character | Destiny | Habit |

Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

Character | Habit | Laziness | Nothing |

Raymond Radiguet

It is not in novelty but in habit that we find the greatest pleasure.

Character | Habit | Novelty | Pleasure | Novelty |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.

Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |

Yitzchok Isaac Sher

A person easily becomes a slave to his habits. The most difficult habits to break are the habits of thinking in a certain manner. You can have a large amount of control over yourself by working to obtain positive habits. Even with habits of thoughts, we have the ability to utilize the power of habit to form the habit of thinking rationally and productively, and to elevate our thoughts to such a degree that we will have changed our entire thought patterns for the better.

Ability | Better | Character | Control | Habit | Power | Thinking | Thought | Will | Thought |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

Charity should be the habit of our estimates; kindness of our feelings; benevolence of our affections; cheerfulness of our social intercourse; generosity of our living; improvement of our progress; prayer of our desires; fidelity of our sex-examination; being and doing good of our entire life.

Benevolence | Character | Charity | Cheerfulness | Feelings | Fidelity | Generosity | Good | Habit | Improvement | Kindness | Life | Life | Prayer | Progress |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.

Character | Habit | Happy |

Janet Erskine Stuart, known as Mother Janet Stuart

We must never try to escape the obligation of living at our best.

Character | Obligation |