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

Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Abu Ismaïl Abdullah ibn Abi-Mansour Mohammad or Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat

Desire for knowledge is the path of honor: desire for wealth is the path of dishonor. Wealth is the chain that slaves wear; knowledge the kingly crown.

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Character | Desire | Dishonor | Honor | Knowledge | Wealth |

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Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

To have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?

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Character | Life | Life |

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Arthur Aughey

A firm faith is the best theology; a good life is the best philosophy, a clear conscience the best law; honesty the best policy, and temperance the best physic.

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Character | Conscience | Faith | Good | Honesty | Law | Life | Life | Philosophy | Policy | Theology |

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Roy I. Bagley

Right thinking is a prerequisite to right living... In truth the destiny of any life is determined by what fills that mind.

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Character | Destiny | Life | Life | Mind | Right | Thinking | Truth | Wisdom |

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Francis Ellington Abbot

Just as a tested and rugged virtue of the moral hero is worth more than the lovely, tender, untried innocence of the child, so is the massive strength of a soul that has conquered truth for itself worth more than the soft peach-bloom faith of a soul that takes truth on trust.

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Character | Faith | Hero | Innocence | Soul | Strength | Trust | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |

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Herbert Sebastian Agar

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

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Character | Men | Truth |

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Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Once thing here is worth a great deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men.

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Character | Justice | Life | Life | Men | Truth | Worth |

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Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.

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Body | Character | Fame | Fortune | Judgment | Life | Life | Oblivion | Perception | Soul | Time |

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George Bancroft

Beauty, like truth and justice, lives within us; like virtue, and like moral law, it is a companion of the soul.

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Beauty | Character | Justice | Law | Moral law | Soul | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |

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Francis Beaumont

The true way to gain much, is never to desire to gain too much. He is not rich that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is not poor that enjoys little, but he that wants too much.

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Character | Desire | Little | Wants |

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Michael Barenbaum

Envy destroys peace of mind and happiness. An envious person’s life is full of suffering and resentment. He is never happy with what he himself has.

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Character | Envy | Happy | Life | Life | Mind | Peace | Resentment | Suffering |

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Ernest Becker

Man transcends death by finding meaning in his life... It is the burning desire for the creature to count... What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance.

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Character | Death | Desire | Insignificance | Life | Life | Man | Meaning |

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Barbara Brennan

The meaning of life is experienced when we are in touch with our unique essence, sometimes called the divine spark within... It is both individual and universal. When we are fully aware of this unique inner radiance, we feel what it is to be utterly alive. We experience unconditional love. We sense complete safety because that spark also connects us to the universal divinity within all things.

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Character | Divinity | Experience | Individual | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Sense | Unique |

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Hugh Blair

Pride makes us esteem ourselves; vanity makes us desire the esteem of others.

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Character | Desire | Esteem | Pride |

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Abel Bonnard

The moral life of any people rises or falls with the vitality or decay of its religious life.

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Character | Life | Life | People |

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Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

For truth there is no deadline.

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Character | Truth |

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Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

There is only one Duty. It is to realize the divinity within... our most sacred life purpose, the most honored ground of existence, and everything else must be made to subserve it.

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Character | Divinity | Duty | Existence | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Sacred |

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