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

Jean de La Bruyère

We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much; a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows, but which all the world does not practice.

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Character | Little | Practice | World |

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Eldress Harriet Bullard

Do good. This should be the aim of every human being, to make the world better for their having lived.

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Better | Character | Good | World |

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William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

What a pleasure life would be to live if everybody would try to do only half of what he expects others to do.

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Character | Life | Life | Pleasure |

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Abel Bonnard

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

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Character | Duty | Happy | Joy | Obligation | Right | Sadness | World |

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William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall

The highest part of the art of life is the expectation of miracles.

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Art | Character | Expectation | Life | Life | Miracles | Art | Expectation |

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Hugh Blair

Such is the infatuation of self-love, that, though in general doctrine of the vanity world all men agree, yet almost everyone flatters himself that his own case is to be an exception from the common rule.

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Character | Doctrine | Love | Men | Rule | Self | Self-love | World |

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Christian Nestell Bovee

There is great beauty in going through life fearlessly. Half our fears are baseless, the other half discreditable.

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Beauty | Character | Life | Life | Wisdom | Beauty |

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Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch

Young people imagine there is great value in fame. Those with life experience know that in truth publicity is extremely short-lived. The nature of the world is that every piece of news makes an impression for only a very short time. After those few minutes the impression is erased and quickly forgotten. It is as if it never was.

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Character | Experience | Fame | Impression | Life | Life | Nature | News | People | Time | Truth | World | Value |

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Edward William Bok

Man cannot live by bread alone. The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living. Life is something more than these, and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life - service for others.

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Character | Joy | Life | Life | Man | Money | Power | Service | Truth |

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Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

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Cause | Character | Life | Life | Wisdom |

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R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth

We walk, and our religion is shown (even in the dullest and most insensitive person) in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.

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Character | Disguise | Man | Means | Nothing | Religion | World |

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Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke

The Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, the soul of man is immortal... the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all... the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one is in the long run absolutely certain.

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Character | Good | Love | Man | Soul | Universe | Work | World | Happiness |

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Samuel Butler

The world will always be governed by self-interest: we should not try to stop this: we should try and make the self-interest of cads a little more coincident with that of decent people.

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Character | Little | People | Self | Self-interest | Will | World |

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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.

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

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