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

James Fenimore Cooper

A true history of human events would show a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast.

Accident | Character | Events | History | Reason |

Jeremy Collier

There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.

Character | Reason | Wisdom |

William Congreve

Thought precedes the will to think, and error lives ere reason can be born. Reason, the power to guess at right and wrong, the twinkling lamp of wand'ring life, that winks and wakes by turns fooling the follower 'twixt shade and shining.

Character | Error | Power | Reason | Right | Thought | Will | Wisdom |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly.

Angels | Character | Reason |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

We must be fond of the world, even in order to change it.

Change | Character | Order | World |

Edward Everett

Truth travels down from the heights of philosophy to the humblest walks of lie, and up from the simplest perceptions of an awakened intellect to the discoveries which almost change the face of the world. At every stage of its progress it is genial, luminous, creative.

Change | Character | Philosophy | Progress | Truth | World | Intellect |

Lammot du Pont

People may change their minds as often as their coats, and new sets of rules of conduct may be written every week, but the fact remains that human nature has not changed and does not change, that inherent human beliefs stay the same; the fundamental rules of human conduct continue to hold.

Change | Character | Conduct | Human nature | Nature | People |

Francis Fane, fully Sir Francis Fane of Fulbeck

When the soul grants what reason makes her see, that is true faith, what’s more’s credulity.

Character | Faith | Reason | Soul |

Rudolf Driekurs

We can change our whole life and the attitude of people around us simply by changing ourselves.

Change | Character | Life | Life | People |

Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct.

Change | Character | Conduct | Heart | Repentance | Wisdom | Work |

John Denham, fully Sir John Denham

Be just in all thy actions, and if join’d with those that are not, never change thy mind.

Change | Character | Mind |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Susceptible persons are more affected by a change of tone than by unexpected words.

Change | Character | Words |

William Feather

Change, not habit, is what gets most of us down; habit is the stabilizer of human society, change accounts for its progress.

Change | Character | Habit | Progress | Society |

Benjamin Franklin

They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.

Character | Reason | Will |

John Clayton Gifford

One man can completely change the character of a country, and the industry of its people, but dropping a single seed in fertile soil.

Change | Character | Industry | Man | People |