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

Agathon NULL

The improvement of the mind improves the heart and corrects the understanding.

Character | Heart | Improvement | Mind | Understanding |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission.

Character | Man | Sin |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

Character | Man | Men | Opinion | Rest | Value |

Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon, aka Rabbi Avraham Maimuni, aka Rabbeinu Avraham ben ha-Rambam NULL

Do not yearn for any other situation in the world besides the one you actually find yourself in.

Character | World |

Walter Bagehot

An inability to stay quiet... is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

Character | Mankind | Quiet | Wisdom |

Faith Baldwin

You cannot contribute anything to the ideal condition of mind and heart known as Brotherhood, however much you preach, posture, or agree, unless you live it.

Brotherhood | Character | Heart | Mind |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

Nothing destroys the potential for parents to have a close relationship with their children as disciplining through excessive fear. When children are still young, parents should be aware that one day their children will become independent. Parents who frequently use fear as a weapon create negative feelings in their children. When they grow up, those children are likely to rebel against their parents and go their own way.

Character | Children | Day | Fear | Feelings | Nothing | Parents | Relationship | Will |

Archibald Alison

The best principles, if pushed to excess, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; and the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression.

Character | Charity | Excess | Extravagance | Generosity | Justice | Oppression | Principles |

Aśvaghoṣa NULL

The purpose of this discipline is to bring man into the habit of applying the insight that has come to him as the result of the preceding disciplines. When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one’s mind on the act and the doing of it, not on one’s relation to the act, or its character or value. One should think: there is walking, there is stopping, there is realizing; not, I am walking, I am doing this, it is a good thing, it is disagreeable, I am gaining merit, it is I who am realizing how wonderful it is. Thence come vagrant thoughts, feelings of elation or of failure and unhappiness. Instead of all this, one should simply practice concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquillity of mind, realization, insight and Wisdom; and one should follow the practice in faith, willingness and gladness. After long practice the bondage of old habits become weakened and disappears, and in its place appear confidence, satisfaction, awareness and tranquillity. What is the Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and mortificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individual’s instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges - the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish one’s personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances.

Anger | Awareness | Character | Confidence | Control | Discipline | Enlightenment | Failure | Faith | Fear | Feelings | Good | Greed | Habit | Individual | Insight | Lust | Man | Means | Merit | Mind | Personality | Practice | Pride | Purpose | Purpose | Tranquility | Understanding | Unhappiness | Will | Wisdom | Failure | Awareness | Old |

Arthur Aughey

It is one of the worst of errors to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty.

Character | Duty |

Joseph Marius von Babo

As it is in himself alone that man can find true and enduring happiness, so in himself alone can he find true and efficient consolation in misfortune.

Character | Consolation | Man | Misfortune | Wisdom |

Harry F. Banks, real name possibly Harry Band

To succeed, one must possess an effective combination of ability, ambition, courage, drive, hard work, integrity and loyalty.

Ability | Ambition | Character | Courage | Integrity | Loyalty | Loyalty | Work |

Francis Beaumont

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

Character | Conscience | Earth | Hell | Guilty |

Henry Whitney Bellows

When a man does a noble act, date him from that. Forget his faults. Let his noble act be the standpoint from which you regard him.

Character | Man | Regard |

Archibald Alison

There is no unmixed good in human affairs; the best principles, if pushed to excess, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression. It is the same in the political world; the tranquillity of despotism resembles the stagnation of the Dead Sea; the fever of innovation the tempests of the ocean It would seem as if, at particular periods, from causes inscrutable to human wisdom, a universal frenzy seizes mankind; reason, experience, prudence, are alike blinded; and the very classes who are to perish in the storm are the first to raise its fury.

Character | Charity | Excess | Experience | Extravagance | Fury | Generosity | Good | Innovation | Justice | Mankind | Oppression | Principles | Prudence | Prudence | Reason | Tranquility | Wisdom | World |