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

Natalie Cole

Just as we can dig a channel to control the direction of a stream, we can control the direction of our children's activities through praise and recognition.

Children | Control | Praise | Wisdom |

Samuel Clarke

There was plainly wanting a divine revelation to recover mankind out of their universal corruption and degeneracy.

Corruption | Degeneracy | Mankind | Revelation | Wisdom |

Agatha Christie, fully Dame Agatha Miller Christie

To say that every crime brings its own punishment is by way of being a platitude, and yet in my opinion nothing can be truer.

Crime | Nothing | Opinion | Punishment | Wisdom |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

He whose ruling passion is the love of praise is a slave to everyone who has a tongue for flattery and calumny.

Calumny | Flattery | Love | Passion | Praise | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Change of opinion is often only the progress of sound thought and growing knowledge; and though sometimes regarded as an inconsistency, it is but the noble inconsistency natural to a mind ever ready for growth and expansion of thought, and that never fears to follow where truth and duty may lead the way.

Change | Duty | Growth | Inconsistency | Knowledge | Mind | Opinion | Progress | Sound | Thought | Truth | Wisdom | Thought |

Tyron Edwards

Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.

Censure | Falsehood | Praise | Self | Self-praise | Superiority | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The discovery of nuclear reactions need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than the discovery of matches.

Discovery | Mankind | Need | Wisdom | Discovery |

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

An opinion may be controverted; a prejudice, never.

Opinion | Prejudice | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The school should always have as its aim that the young man leave it as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist. This in my opinion is true in a certain sense even in technical schools.... The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge.

Ability | Judgment | Knowledge | Man | Opinion | Personality | Sense | Thinking | Wisdom |

Freeman John Dyson

There are three reasons why, quite apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first reason is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second reason is to escape material impoverishment; the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forgo forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third reason is our spiritual need for an open frontier. The ultimate purpose of space travel is to bring to humanity, not only scientific discoveries and an occasional spectacular show on television, but a real expansion of our spirit.

Abundance | Earth | Energy | Humanity | Mankind | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Space | Spirit | Television | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men, shall we be able to speak of mankind as civilized.

Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Obligation | Wisdom |

Henry Havelock Ellis

We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide.

Mankind | Suicide | Wisdom |

Euripedes NULL

Here all mankind is equal: rich and poor alike, they love their children.

Children | Love | Mankind | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

Money | Opinion | Will | Wisdom |

William Maxwell Evarts

Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of ascent, was adjustable on principles of the common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

Authority | Capacity | Civilization | Culture | Government | Man | Mankind | Morality | People | Principles | Progress | Reason | Redemption | Security | Society | Title | Wisdom |

Henry Fielding

Let no man be sorry he has done good because others have done evil. If a man has acted right, he has done well, though alone; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

Evil | Good | Justify | Man | Mankind | Right | Will | Wisdom | Wrong |