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

Arthur Aughey

There are many seasons in a man’s life - and the more exalted and responsible his position, the more frequently do these seasons recur - when the voice of duty and the dictates of feeling are opposed to each other; and it is only the weak and the wicked who yield that obedience to the selfish impulses of the heart which is due to reason and honor.

Character | Duty | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Man | Obedience | Position | Reason |

Honoré de Balzac

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gait, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius.

Character | Disrespect | Effort | Genius | Gentleness | Little | Looks | Man | Manners | Mind | Simplicity | Thought |

Walter Bagehot

So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise, and their conscience that is wrong.

Character | Conscience | Judgment | Will | World | Wrong |

Gérard Bauër

The voice is a second face.

Character |

Francis Beaumont

A guilty conscience is a hell on earth, and points to one beyond.

Character | Conscience | Earth | Hell | Guilty |

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.

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

Richard Alleine

There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart.

Character | Conscience | Heart | Tenderness | Will |

James Boswell

It is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another.

Character | Conscience | Man | Rights |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I would rather be kicked with a foot than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words.

Character | Wisdom | Words |

Hugh Blair

In vain we attempt to clear our conscience by affecting to compensate for fraud or cruelty by acts of strict religious homage towards God.

Character | Conscience | Cruelty | Fraud | God | Cruelty |

William Blake

The voice of the Devil. All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors: 1. That man has two real existing principles; vis; a body and a soul. 2. That energy, called evil, is alone from body, and that reason, called good, is alone from the soul. 3. That God will torment man in eternity for the following energies. But the following contraries to these are true: 1. Man has no body distinct from his soul; for that called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of the soul in this age. 2. Energy is the only life, and is from the body; and reason is bound or outward circumference of energy. 3. Energy is eternal delight.

Age | Body | Character | Devil | Energy | Eternal | Eternity | Evil | God | Good | Life | Life | Man | Principles | Reason | Sacred | Soul | Will | Following | God |

Thomas Chalmers

Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. :You must go to the poor man’s cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.

Benevolence | Business | Character | Duty | Experience | Gentleness | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Men | Music | Poetry | Simplicity | Truth | Will | Business |

Thomas Chalmers

In the wildest anarchy of man’s insurgent appetites and sins there is still a reclaiming voice, a voice which, even when in practice disregarded, it is impossible not to own; and to which, at the very moment that we refuse our obedience, we find that we cannot refuse the homage of what ourselves do feel and acknowledge to be the best, the highest principles of our nature.

Anarchy | Character | Man | Nature | Obedience | Practice | Principles |

William Ellery Channing

Every human being has a work to carry on within, duties to perform abroad, influences to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

Character | Conscience | Teach | Work |

Tyron Edwards

The first impulse of conscience is apt to be right; the first impulse of appetite or passion is generally wrong. We should be faithful to the former, but suspicious of the latter.

Appetite | Character | Conscience | Impulse | Passion | Right | Wisdom | Wrong |

Benjamin Franklin

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Character | Conscience | Good | Wisdom |

Henry Fielding

A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.

Character | Conscience | Good | Neglect | Will |