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

William Congreve

You read of but one wise man; and all that he knew was - that he knew nothing.

Character | Man | Nothing | Wise |

William Ellery Channing

True love is the parent of a noble humility.

Character | Humility | Love | Parent |

Seymour Cohen, fully Seymour Jay Cohen

A modern commentator made the observation that there re those who seek knowledge about everything and understand nothing. It is wonder - not mere curiosity - a sense of enchantment, of respect for the mysteries of love for the other, that is essential to the difference between a knowing that is simply a gathering of information and techniques and a knowing that seeks insight and understanding. It is wonder that reveals how intimate is the relationship between knowledge of the other and knowledge of the self, between inwardness and outwardness.

Character | Curiosity | Insight | Knowing | Knowledge | Love | Nothing | Observation | Relationship | Respect | Self | Sense | Understanding | Wonder | Respect | Understand |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

There is no greater joy for a wise man than the joy of improving his character traits.

Character | Joy | Man | Wise |

Canassatego Treaty of Lancaster NULL

You who are so wise must know that different nations have different conceptions of things. You will not therefore take it amiss if our ideas of the white man’s kind of education happens not to be the same as yours. We have had some experience with it. Several of our young people were brought up in your colleges. They were instructed in all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, unable to bear either cold or hunger. They didn’t know how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy. They spoke our language imperfectly. They were therefore unfit to be hunters, warriors, or counselors; they were good for nothing. We are, however, not less obliged for your kind offer, though we decline accepting it. To show our gratefulness, if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care with their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them.

Care | Character | Education | Enemy | Experience | Good | Hunger | Ideas | Kill | Language | Man | Means | Men | Nations | Nothing | People | Will | Wise |

Harold C. Chase, Jr.

The wise person possesses humility. He knows that his small island of knowledge is surrounded by a vast sea of the unknown.

Character | Humility | Knowledge | Wise |

William Ellery Channing

The great duty of God’s children is to love one another. This duty on earth takes the name and form of the law of humanity. We are to recognize all men as brethren, no matter where born, or under what sky, or institution or religion they may live. Every man belongs to the race, and owes a duty to mankind... Men cannot, by combining themselves into narrower or larger societies, sever the sacred, blessed bond which joins them to their kind... The law of humanity must reign; over the assertion of all human rights.

Assertion | Character | Children | Duty | Earth | God | Humanity | Law | Love | Man | Mankind | Men | Race | Religion | Rights | Sacred | Blessed |

William Ellery Channing

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.

Aspiration | Character | Faith | Love |

Jeremy Collier

Those who despise fame seldom deserve it. We are apt to undervalue the purchase we cannot reach, to conceal our poverty the better. It is a spark which kindles upon the best fuel, and burns brightest in the bravest breast.

Better | Character | Despise | Fame | Poverty |

Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré

The only perfection I know of is a hearty love of god, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Charity is the only virtue which rightly unites us to God and man. Such union is our final aim and end, and all the rest is mere delusion.

Character | Charity | Delusion | God | Love | Man | Perfection | Rest | Virtue | Virtue | God |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

In the eyes of a wise person, illusory honor is very cheap. Wisdom enables a person to live a life of light and elevation, enabling him to leave pettiness behind.

Character | Honor | Life | Life | Light | Wisdom | Wise |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

Art | Character | Wealth | Wise |

Euripedes NULL

It is wise even in adversity to listen to reason.

Adversity | Character | Reason | Wise |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Constantly giving to someone will increase your love for that person.

Character | Giving | Love | Will |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

Character | Children | Duty | Eternal | Little | Love | Marriage |

Hans Denk

All externals must yield to love; for they are for the sake of love, and not love for them.

Character | Love |