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 Beaumont

If men would wound you with injuries, meet them with patience: hasty words rankle the wound, soft language, dresses it, forgiveness cures it, and oblivion takes away the scar. It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury than by argument to overcome it.

Argument | Character | Forgiveness | Language | Men | Oblivion | Patience | Silence | Words | Forgiveness |

J. Beaumont

If men wound you with injuries, meet them with patience; hasty words rankle the wound, soft language dresses it, forgiveness cures it, and oblivion takes away the scar. It is more noble by silence to avoid an injury; than by argument to overcome it.

Argument | Character | Forgiveness | Language | Men | Oblivion | Patience | Silence | Words | Forgiveness |

Mary Ellen Chase

The greatest danger in any argument is that real issues are often clouded by superficial ones, that momentary passions may obscure permanent realities.

Argument | Character | Danger | Wisdom | Danger |

Thomas Hobbes

For... what liberty is; there can no other proof be offered but every man’s own experience, by reflection on himself, and remembering what he useth in his mind, that is, what he himself meaneth when he saith an action... is free. Now he that reflecteth so on himself, cannot but be satisfied... that a free agent is he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. But to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive, but what they heard, and are not able, or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words, no argument can be sufficient, because experience and matter of fact are not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory.

Absence | Action | Argument | Character | Custom | Experience | Liberty | Man | Memory | Men | Mind | Reflection | Sense | Will | Words | Think |

Charles Montagu Halifax, 1st Earl of Halifax, Lord Halifax

Anger is seldom without argument but seldom with a good one.

Anger | Argument | Character | Good | Wisdom |

William James

I [have] often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one.

Argument | Character | Existence | Life | Life | Man |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that reason is weak.

Argument | Character | Noise | Reason |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?

Argument | Character | Folly | Grave |

Publius Syrus

In a heated argument we lose sight of the truth.

Argument | Character | Truth |

George Matthew Adams

Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.

Argument | Good | Opportunity | Wisdom |

Alan Barth

Tolerance of opinions which are thought to be innocuous is as easy, as acts of charity that entail no sacrifice. But the test of a free society is its tolerance of what is deplored or despised by a majority of its members. The argument for such tolerance must be made on the ground that it is useful to the society... that free societies are better fitted to survive than closed societies.

Argument | Better | Charity | Majority | Sacrifice | Society | Thought | Wisdom | Society | Thought |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

The creed of the true saint is to make the best of life, and make the most of it.

Creed | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Helen Gahagan Douglas

It is not easy to be free men, for to be free you must afford freedom to your neighbor, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin, and that sometimes, for some, is very difficult.

Creed | Freedom | Men | Race | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.

Creed | Perception | Science | Wisdom |

Alfred M. Lilienthal

Here are taught three doctrines which shall be taught here as the essence of Judaism: First, there is a God, one, indivisible, eternal, spiritual, most holy and most perfect. Second, there is an immortal life and man is a son of eternity. Thirdly, love thy fellow men without distinction of creed or race as thyself.

Creed | Distinction | Eternal | Eternity | God | Life | Life | Love | Man | Men | Race | Wisdom |