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

Publius Syrus

Disagreement makes agreement more precious.

Disagreement | Wisdom |

Francis Quarles

Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do, that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory.

Action | Glory | God | Honor | Life | Life | Meditation | Reward | Soul | Wisdom | God |

Charles Reade

When two loving hearts are torn asunder, it is a shade better to be the one that is driven away into action than the bereaved twin that petrifies at home.

Action | Better | Wisdom |

Francis Quarles

Necessity of action takes away fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune.

Action | Fear | Fortune | Necessity | Resolution | Wisdom |

Richard Savage

By woe the soul to daring action steals; by woe in plaintless patience it excels.

Action | Daring | Patience | Soul | Wisdom | Woe |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.

Action | Aid | Cause | Crime | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Action | Good | Inevitable | Wisdom |

William Howard Taft

Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.

Action | Majority | People | Respect | Rights | Self | Wisdom | Respect |

Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL

Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.

Action | Mercy | Sin |

Dhyani Ywahoo

We can listen to the voice of the Earth as she shakes and sings her song expressing her tiredness. She is calling us to attention, to be alert, to recognize that now is the time to transform selfish thought and action to compassionate caretaking. Do we want a world of peace and harmony? Are we willing to make that peace within ourselves? Will we call it forth? It is your choice. Your thought and action make a difference.

Action | Attention | Choice | Earth | Harmony | Peace | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | Thought |

Edward Young

Cares are employments; and without employ the soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, to souls most adverse; action all their joy.

Action | Joy | Rest | Soul | Wisdom |

Jacob Bobart the Younger

Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.

Action | Day |

Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.

Action | Diversity | Good | Inquiry | Intention | Man | Right | Truth | Wisdom |

Carol Adrienne

Karma is a multidimensional complex of forces beyond any simple explanation. Karma is action. An action has consequences. Our identity comes from past actions, which create memories. Those memories create desires, which give rise to new choices and new actions.

Action | Consequences | Past |

Julian Baggini

Life’s meaning has to be found in the living of life itself, and the promise of eventual death is necessary to make any action worthwhile at all.

Action | Death | Life | Life | Meaning | Promise |

Michael E. Angier

Today’s action becomes tomorrow’s habit.

Action | Habit | Tomorrow |

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.

Action | Thought | Wisdom |