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

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

The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure. Thus one realizes the truth of non-duality.

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Character | Circumstances | Duality | Failure | Life | Life | Man | Spirit | Success | Truth | Wise |

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Jean de La Bruyère

We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much; a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows, but which all the world does not practice.

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Character | Little | Practice | World |

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Eldress Harriet Bullard

Do good. This should be the aim of every human being, to make the world better for their having lived.

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Better | Character | Good | World |

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Abel Bonnard

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

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Character | Duty | Happy | Joy | Obligation | Right | Sadness | World |

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Hugh Blair

Such is the infatuation of self-love, that, though in general doctrine of the vanity world all men agree, yet almost everyone flatters himself that his own case is to be an exception from the common rule.

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Character | Doctrine | Love | Men | Rule | Self | Self-love | World |

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Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch

Young people imagine there is great value in fame. Those with life experience know that in truth publicity is extremely short-lived. The nature of the world is that every piece of news makes an impression for only a very short time. After those few minutes the impression is erased and quickly forgotten. It is as if it never was.

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Character | Experience | Fame | Impression | Life | Life | Nature | News | People | Time | Truth | World | Value |

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Edward William Bok

Man cannot live by bread alone. The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living. Life is something more than these, and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life - service for others.

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Character | Joy | Life | Life | Man | Money | Power | Service | Truth |

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William Blake

A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

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Character | Truth |

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R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth

We walk, and our religion is shown (even in the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.

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Character | Disguise | Man | Means | Nothing | Religion | World |

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Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke

The Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, the soul of man is immortal... the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all... the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one is in the long run absolutely certain.

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Character | Good | Love | Man | Soul | Universe | Work | World | Happiness |

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Samuel Butler

The world will always be governed by self-interest: we should not try to stop this: we should try and make the self-interest of cads a little more coincident with that of decent people.

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Character | Little | People | Self | Self-interest | Will | World |

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Yehuda Leib Chasman

A thousand logical statements will be destroyed in the face of one light desire. When a person’s desires overcome his intellect, he becomes an idiot... It is a daily occurrence that people who follow their desires do foolish things that will destroy them both in this world and the next.

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Character | Desire | Destroy | Light | People | Will | World |

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Frank Chin

In Confucianism, all of us - men and women - are born soldiers. The soldier is the universal individual. No matter what you do for a living - doctor, lawyer, fisherman, thief - you are a fighter. Life is war. The war is to maintain personal integrity in a world that demands betrayal and corruption. All behavior is strategy and tactics. All relationships are martial. Marriages are military alliances.

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Behavior | Betrayal | Character | Corruption | Individual | Integrity | Life | Life | Men | War | World |

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