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

Samuel Smiles

It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failure.

Character | Failure | Men | Mistake | Success |

Henry Theodore Tuckerman

There is strength of quiet endurance as significant courage as the most daring fears of prowess.

Character | Courage | Daring | Endurance | Prowess | Quiet | Strength |

Herman Lincoln Wayland

Show us the man who never makes a mistake and we will show you a man who never makes anything. The capacity for occasional blundering is inseparable from the capacity to bring things to pass.

Capacity | Character | Man | Mistake | Will |

Horace Traubel

Have I met the hour patiently, without fear, at the portal? Now is my name called, of the lip of my love has spoken: Do I mistake you, O divine Signaler? is it after all some other soul that is hailed. My self is my answer: there’s that in my heart responds, meeting the call with equal voice, establishing forever the unspeakable bond! Bond that does not bind - bond that frees - bond that discovers and bestows. Look! I am flushed with inexhaustible possessions! The old measures vanish, I am expanded to infinite sweep... Before birth, seeing birth, after life seeing life!... This minute grown infinite, the far worlds spread before me, the endless drift of soul...

Birth | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mistake | Possessions | Self | Soul | Old |

Henry H. Buckley

Mistakes are costly and somebody must pay. The time to correct a mistake is before a mistake is made. The causes of mistakes are first, "I didn't know"; second, "I didn't think"; third, "I didn't care."

Care | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Mistake | Wisdom |

Donald Davidson

False beliefs tend to undermine the identification of the subject matter; to undermine, therefore, the validity of a description of the belief as being about that subject... The more things a believer is right about, the sharper his errors are. To much mistake simply blurs the focus.

Belief | Focus | Mistake | Right | Wisdom |

William Newton Clarke

Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see.

Daring | Faith | Soul | Wisdom |

Lloyd C. Douglas, fully Lloyd Cassel Douglas, born Doya C. Douglas

It was probably a mistake to pursue happiness, much better to create happiness, still better to create happiness for others.

Better | Mistake | Wisdom | Happiness |

Albert Einstein

It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curious of inquiry. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

Coercion | Duty | Enjoyment | Grave | Inquiry | Means | Mistake | Nothing | Sense | Wisdom | Instruction | Think |

Henry Ford

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

Achievement | Mistake | Wisdom |

Saint Gertrude, aka Saint Gertrude of Nivelles NULL

It is a fearful mistake to believe that because our wishes are not accomplished that they can do no harm.

Harm | Mistake | Wisdom | Wishes |

William Ewart Gladstone

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Argument | Logic | Men | Mind | Mistake | Strength | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The mere observing of a thing is no use whatsoever. Observing turns into beholding, beholding to thinking, thinking into establishing connections, so that one may say that every attentive glance we cast on the world is an act of theorizing. However, this ought to be done consciously, with self-criticism, with freedom, and, to use a daring word, with irony.

Criticism | Daring | Freedom | Irony | Self | Thinking | Wisdom | World |

Frederick Hertz, until 1946 Friedrich Otto Hertz, aka Germanus Liber

At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being.

Assertion | God | Heart | Mistake | People | Wisdom | God |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

Daring | Folly | Heaven | Nothing | Wisdom |