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 |

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

To utter pleasant words without practicing them is like a fine flower without fragrance.

Character | Words |

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

Like a beautiful flower full of color, but without scent, are the fine but fruitless words of him who does not act accordingly.

Character | Words |

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 |

William Camden

Fair words hurt not the mouth.

Character | Words |

William Pitt, Lord Chatham or Lord William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, aka The Elder Pitt and The Great Commander

Good-breeding is benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves in the daily occurrences of life.

Benevolence | Character | Good | Life | Life | Preference | Trifles |

Samuel Butler

He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor’s and shown publicly to the rabble.

Character | Heart | Sense | Traitor | Words |

Constitution of the Five Nations NULL

With endless patience you shall carry out your duty, and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall lodge in your mind, and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation. In all your deliberations in the Council, in your efforts at lawmaking, in all your official acts, self-interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not away the warnings of any others, if they should chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law, which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the earth - the unborn of the future Nation.

Anger | Character | Deliberation | Duty | Earth | Error | Firmness | Fury | Future | Law | Mind | Oblivion | Patience | People | Present | Right | Self | Self-interest | Tenderness | Words | Wrong |

Edward Watke, Jr.

The very nearest approach to domestic happiness on earth is in the cultivation on both sides of absolute unselfishness. Never both be angry at once. Never talk at one another, either alone or in company. Never speak loud to one another unless the house is on fire. Let each; one strive to yield oftenest to the wishes of the other. Let self-denial be the daily aim and practice of each. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed, and always speak lovingly. Never taunt with a past mistake. Neglect the whole world besides rather than one another. Never allow a request to be repeated. Never make a remark at the expense of each other, it is a meanness. Never part for a day without loving words to think of during absence. Never meet without a loving welcome. Never let the sun go down upon any anger or grievance. Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have frankly confessed it and asked forgiveness. Never forget the happy hours of early love. Never sigh over what might have been, but make the best of what is. Never forget that marriage is ordained of God, and that His blessing alone can make it what it should ever be. Never be contented till you know you are both walking in the narrow way. Never let your hopes stop short of the eternal home.

Absence | Absolute | Anger | Character | Cultivation | Day | Earth | Eternal | Fault | Forgiveness | God | Happy | Love | Marriage | Meanness | Mistake | Neglect | Past | Practice | Self | Self-denial | Wishes | Words | World | Fault | Happiness | Think |

Cochise NULL

You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts.

Character | Words |

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie

All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.

Character | Hope | Wisdom | Words |

Euripedes NULL

Plain and unvarnished are the words of truth.

Character | Truth | Words |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

It seems not to be true that there is a power in the universe, which watches over the well-being of every individual with parental care and brings all his concerns to a happy ending. On the contrary, the destinies of man are incompatible with a universal principle of benevolence or with - what is to some degree contradictory - a universal principle of justice... Dark, unfeeling, and unloving powers determine human destiny; the system of rewards and punishments, which according to religion, governs the world, seems to have no existence.

Benevolence | Care | Character | Destiny | Existence | Happy | Individual | Justice | Man | Power | Religion | System | Universe | World |

Lowell Fillmore

Those who think they have nothing to give should always remember that they can always give themselves, and that they can always render some kind of service even if it be nothing more than a few words of cheer.

Character | Nothing | Service | Words | Think |

Achai Gaon, known as Ahai of Sabha or Aha of Sabha

By benevolence man rises to a height where he meets God. Therefore do a good deed before you begin your prayers.

Benevolence | Character | God | Good | Man |

Arthur Guiterman

Good manners may in Seven Words be found: Forget Yourself and think of Those Around.

Character | Good | Manners | Words | Think |

Robert Hall

Let your words be few and digested, it is a shame for the tongue to cry the heart mercy, much more to cast itself upon the uncertain pardon of others’ ears.

Character | Heart | Mercy | Pardon | Shame | Words |

Madame Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe Guyon

There are three kinds of silence. Silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence, or rest from desires and passions is still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. But the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper reputation and for silence in other respects.

Better | Character | Evil | Good | Reputation | Rest | Silence | Spirit | Words |

N. Grou

A simple heart will love all that is most precious on earth, husband or wife, parent or child, brother or friend, without marring its singleness; external things will have no attraction save inasmuch as they lead souls to Him; all exaggeration or unreality, affection and falsehood must pass away from such a one, as the dews dry up before the sunshine. The single motive is to please God, and hence arises total indifference as to what others say and think, so that words and actions are perfectly simple and natural, as in his sight.

Character | Earth | Exaggeration | Falsehood | Friend | God | Heart | Husband | Indifference | Love | Wife | Will | Words | Parent |