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

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

The angels may have wider spheres of action, may have nobler forms of duty; but right with them and with us is one and the same thing.

Action | Angels | Character | Duty | Right |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

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

Angels | Character | Reason |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

Angels | Character | Life | Life | Nothing | Past |

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr.

As to modesty and decency, if we are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else - fallen angels - we have indeed fallen far.

Angels | Character | Modesty |

Thomas Paine

Reputation is what men and women think of us. Character is what God and angels know of us.

Angels | Character | God | Men | Reputation | God | Think |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Angels | Humility | Men | Pride | Wisdom |

Phoebe Cary

Women are only told that they resemble angels when they are young and beautiful; consequently, it is their persons, not their virtues, that procure them homage.

Angels | Wisdom |

Pope Leo I, aka Pope Leo The Great, Pope Saint Leo I NULL

Peace is the first thing the angels sang. Peace is the mark of the sons of God. Peace is the nurse of love. Peace is the mother of unity. Peace is the rest of blessed souls. Peace is the dwelling place of eternity.

Angels | Eternity | God | Love | Mother | Peace | Rest | Unity | Wisdom | Blessed |

Richard Hooker

Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is thy bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things do her homage, the very least as feeling her care; and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

Angels | Care | God | Harmony | Joy | Law | Men | Mother | Peace | Power | Wisdom | World |

Young “Savage” Seminarians NULL

You tell us that baptism is absolutely necessary to go to heaven. If there were a man so good that he had never offended God, and if he died without baptism, would he go to hell, never having given any offense to God? If he goes to hell, then God must not love all good people, since He throws one into the fire. You teach us that God existed before the creation of heaven and earth. If He did, where did He live, since there was neither heaven nor earth? You say that the angels were created n the beginning of the world, and that those who disobeyed were cast into hell. How can that be so, since you say the angels sinned before earth’s creation, and hell is in the depths of the earth? You declare that those who go to hell do not come out of it, and yet you relate stories of the damned who have appeared in the world - how is that to be understood. Ah, how I would like to kill devils, since they do so much harm! But if they are made like men and some are even among men, do they still feel the fire of hell? Why is it that they do not repent for having offended God? If they did repent, would not God be merciful to them? If Our Lord has suffered for all sinners, why do not they receive pardon from him? You say that the virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, is not God, and that she has never offended God. You also say that her Son has redeemed all men, and atoned for all; but if she has done nothing wrong, her son could not redeem her nor atone for her.

Angels | Beginning | Earth | God | Good | Harm | Heaven | Hell | Kill | Lord | Love | Man | Men | Mother | Nothing | Offense | Pardon | People | Receive | Teach | Wisdom | World | Wrong | God |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as a plant and rose to animal, I died as an animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as a man, to soar with angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God perish. When I have sacrificed my angel soul, I shall become what no mind e’er conceived. Oh, let me not exist! For Non-existence proclaims in organ tones, “To Him we shall return.”

Angels | Existence | Fear | God | Man | Mind | Non-existence | Soul | God |

Amos Bronson Alcott

Good-humor, gay spirits, are the liberators the sure cure for spleen and melancholy. deeper than tears, these irradiate the tophets with their glad heavens. Go laugh, vent the pits, transmuting imps into angels by the alchemy of smiles. The satans flee at the sight of these redeemers.

Alchemy | Angels | Good | Humor | Melancholy | Tears |

Blaise Pascal

Religion is suited to all kinds of minds. Some pay attention only to its establishment, and this religion is such that its very establishment suffices to prove its truth. Others trace it even to the apostles. The more learned go back to the beginning of the world. The angels see it better still, and from a more distant time.

Angels | Attention | Beginning | Better | Religion | Time | Truth | World |

Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens

It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!

Angels | Better | Heart | Life | Life | Memory | Nature | Soul | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |

Eric Hoffer

In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes - courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Alchemy | Compassion | Courage | Duty | Evil | Faith | Good | Honor | Hope | Love | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Ruthlessness | Soul |

English Proverbs

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Angels | Fear |