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

Jean de La Bruyère

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

Character | Love |

Stephan Bodian

Give up the notion that there is a final state to attain. Spiritual life consists of ongoing practice undertaken as a lifetime work. This realization breeds humility, especially when we realize that in our initial infatuation with enlightenment, we underestimate the amount of inner work necessary to free us from our addictive patterns of thought and behavior.

Behavior | Character | Enlightenment | Humility | Life | Life | Practice | Thought | Work | Thought |

Georg Brandes, fully Georg Morris Cohen Brandes

The appalling thing about war is that it kills all love of truth.

Character | Love | Truth | War |

Michael Braver

At times you might become angry at someone because he refuses to accept your help. This is especially true if you wen tout of your way to help him. The way to overcome this anger is to keep your focus on helping others for their benefit and not because you personally wish to accomplish.

Anger | Character | Focus |

Richard Baxter

I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth.

Character | Earth | Expectation | Experience | Heaven | Love | Soul | Expectation | Friends |

Black Hawk, born Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak NULL

My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon and cultivate as far as necessary for their subsistence, and so long as they occupy and cultivate it they have the right to the soil, but if they voluntarily leave it then any other people have a right to settle on it. Nothing can be sold, except things that can be carried away.

Character | Children | Land | Nothing | People | Reason | Right | Spirit | Wisdom |

Francis William Bourdillon

The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one; yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.

Character | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Love | Mind |

James Boswell

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason.

Character | Children | Cultivation | Man | Pity | Reason |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities.

Character | People |

Abel Bonnard

In love one has need of being believed, in friendship of being understood.

Character | Love | Need | Friendship |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Our first and last love is - self-love.

Character | Love | Self | Self-love |

Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

The ability to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.

Ability | Character | Love |

Jean de La Bruyère

We never love heartily but once, and that is the first time we love.

Character | Love | Time |

Andrei Bitov, fully Andrei Georgiyevich Bitov

Life has neither material nor idealistic secrecy or mystery about it. Life is equal to itself only, hence perceiving its meaning is out of the question... The exaggeration of our mental abilities has given rise to what we perceive as “the problem” of discerning life’s purpose... If it is beyond our powers to disembowel love and beauty - we can only ravish them - it means that they are given to us not for cognition but for reflection. Similarly, the freedom of choice granted to man, a freedom denied the rest of the living species, is man’s task, a duty to exercise and fulfill, not merely an opportune option.

Beauty | Character | Choice | Duty | Exaggeration | Freedom | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Means | Mystery | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Reflection | Rest | Secrecy | Beauty |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders.

Character | Love |

David A. Brandon

The highest level of compassion is without any purpose or intent. It seeks neither the good of others nor its own good. It lies in being good not ‘doing good.’ There is simply living without design or conscious reflection. It embodies the fostering of love.

Character | Compassion | Design | Good | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection |

Jean de La Bruyère

The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone.

Beginning | Character | Love |

Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.

Age | Change | Character | Error | Labor | Life | Life | Youth |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire. A generous habit of thought and action carries with it an incalculable influence.

Action | Character | Example | Habit | Influence | Reason | Thought | Thought |