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

Jeremy Taylor

Great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most sever bridle of the tongue... Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge checks the dissolution of the tongue.

Character | Knowledge | Reason |

Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford

Count the day lost, whose low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Action | Character | Day |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.

Character | Man | Reason | Right | Wavering |

Brooke Foss Westcott

No repentance on earth can undo the past.

Character | Earth | Past | Repentance |

James R. Adams

Man is a creature of impulse, emotion, action rather than reason. Reason is a very late development in the world of living creatures, most of whom, as far as we know, get along admirably in daily life without it.

Action | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Reason | Wisdom | World |

Richard Whately

Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself? Your looking-glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.

Character | Man | Reason | Will |

Edward Wigglesworth

Common opinions often conflict with common sense; for reason in most minds is no match for prejudices, a hydra whose heads grow faster than they can be cut off.

Character | Common Sense | Reason | Sense |

George Matthew Adams

One reason why men and women lose their heads so often is that they use them so little!... The more the mind is used the more flexible it becomes, and the more it takes upon itself new interests.

Little | Men | Mind | Reason | Wisdom |

John Wesley

Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.

Character | Passion | Prejudice | Reason | Religion | World | Govern |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

This is a property of the rational soul, love of one’s neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice.

Justice | Law | Love | Modesty | Nothing | Property | Reason | Right | Soul | Truth | Wisdom | Value |