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

Hugh Blair

Dissimulation in youth is the forerunner of perfidy in old age; its first appearance is the fatal omen of growing depravity and future shame. It degrades parts and learning obscures the luster of every accomplishment and sinks us into contempt. The path of falsehood is a perplexing maze. After the first departure from sincerity, it is not in our power to stop; one artifice unavoidably leads on to another, till, as the intricacy of the labyrinth increases, we are left entangled in our snare.

Accomplishment | Age | Appearance | Artifice | Character | Contempt | Falsehood | Future | Learning | Old age | Perfidy | Power | Shame | Sincerity | Youth | Youth | Old |

Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke

When a person who was self conscious only, enters into cosmic consciousness - he knows without learning certain things... that the universe is not a dead machine but a living presence... that in its essence and tendency it is infinitely good... that individual existence is continuous beyond what is called death.

Character | Consciousness | Death | Existence | Good | Individual | Learning | Self | Universe |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

The essence of justice is mercy. Making a child suffer for wrong-doing is merciful to the child. There is no mercy in letting a child have its own will, plunging headlong to destruction wit the bits in its mouth. There is no mercy to society nor to the criminal if the wrong is not repressed and the right vindicated. We injure the culprit who comes up to take his proper doom at the bar of justice, if we do not make him feel that he has done a wrong thing. We may deliver his body from the prison, but not at the expense of justice nor to his own injury.

Body | Character | Justice | Mercy | Prison | Right | Society | Will | Wit | Wrong | Society | Child |

Antoinette Du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières

Seeking to know is only too often learning to doubt.

Character | Doubt | Learning |

Henry Fielding

There is a sort of knowledge beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had in conversation; so necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Books | Character | Conversation | Human nature | Knowledge | Learning | Men | Nature | Power | System | Understanding | World |

Edgar Z. Friedenberg

So much of learning to be an American is learning not to let your individuality become a nuisance.

Character | Individuality | Learning |

H. G. Hutcheson

The most difficult job teenagers have today is learning good conduct without seeing any.

Character | Conduct | Good | Learning |

David Hume

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.

Character | Imagination | Passion | Rule | Wit |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

The truth of not-knowing is the only factor from which one can move. The truth of that is stable. A mind that does not know is in a state of learning. The moment I say I have learned, I have stopped learning and that stopping is the stability of division.

Character | Knowing | Learning | Mind | Truth |

Charles Lucas, fully Sir Charles L. Lucas

Civilization is just a slow process of learning to be kind.

Character | Civilization | Learning | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Learning is not to be tacked to the mind, but we must fuse and blend them together, not merely giving the mind a slight tincture, but a thorough and perfect dye. and if we perceive no evident change and improvement, it would be better to leave it alone; learning is a dangerous weapon, and apt to wound its master if it be wielded by a feeble hand, and by one not well acquainted with its use.

Better | Change | Character | Giving | Improvement | Learning | Mind |

Roy C. McLain

Happiness has little to do with age, circumstances, health, wealth, learning or status. It follows as you become a part of life's solution rather than its problem.

Age | Character | Circumstances | Health | Learning | Life | Life | Little | Wealth |

Francis Osborn

Let your wit rather serve you for a buckler to defend yourself, by a handsome reply, than the sword to wound others, though with ever so facetious reproach; remembering that a word cuts deeper than a sharper weapon and the wound it makes is longer curing.

Character | Wisdom | Wit |

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

The true order of learning should be: first, what is necessary; second, what is useful, and third, what is ornamental. To reverse this arrangement is like beginning to build at the top of an edifice.

Beginning | Character | Learning | Order |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

Perpetual aiming at wit is a very bad part of conversation. It is done to support a character: it generally fails; it is a sort of insult on the company, and a restraint upon the speaker.

Character | Conversation | Insult | Restraint | Wit | Insult |

Jeremy Taylor

It is a great point of wisdom to hide ignorance, as to discover knowledge. To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

Character | Ignorance | Knowledge | Learning | Wisdom |

Tze-sze NULL

To be fond of learning is to be near to knowledge.

Character | Knowledge | Learning |