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

Jean de La Bruyère

The slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many as there are people useful to his fortune.

Character | Fortune | Man | People |

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.

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

William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Character | Men |

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.

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

Richard Cecil

To love to preach is one thing - to love those to whom we preach, quite another.

Character | Love |

Thomas Chalmers

The human mind feels restless and dissatisfied under the anxieties of ignorance. It longs for the repose of conviction; and to gain this repose it will often rather precipitate its conclusions than wait for the tardy lights of observation and experiment. There is such a thing, too, as the love of simplicity and system, a prejudice of the understanding which disposes it to include al the phenomena of nature under a few sweeping generalities, and indolence which loves to repose on the beauties of a theory rather than encounter the fatiguing detail of its evidences.

Character | Experiment | Ignorance | Indolence | Love | Mind | Nature | Observation | Phenomena | Prejudice | Repose | Simplicity | System | Understanding | Will |

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.

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

Champ Clark, formally James Beauchamp Clark

By discharging our duty thoroughly and well, subordinating personal desires to principle, and personal ambition to an exalted love of country, we will not only receive the endorsement of the people, but, what is far better, we will deserve their endorsement.

Ambition | Better | Character | Duty | Love | People | Receive | Will | Ambition |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Some people habitually wear sadness, like a garment, and think it a becoming grace. God loves a cheerful worshipper.

Character | God | Grace | People | Sadness | God | Think |

Ilka Chase

The only people who never fail are those who never try.

Character | People |

Yehuda Leib Chasman

Your awareness of your self-worth is not a contradiction to the obligation to be humble. Humility is not a lack of awareness of your positive accomplishments and abilities. Only a fool is not aware of what he really is an this is not humility. Humility is the internalized awareness with every fiber of your body that everything, yes everything, you have is not your own. Rather it is a gift from the Almighty who bestowed His kindness on you. The more a person actually feels that what he has is a gift the greater is his humility.

Awareness | Body | Character | Contradiction | Humility | Kindness | Obligation | Self | Self-worth | Worth | Awareness |

Stuart Cloete, fully Edward Fairly Stuart Graham

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Character | Happy |

Richard Cecil

The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves.

Character | Heart | Self | Sin | Spirit | Worship |