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

John Clayton Gifford

One man can completely change the character of a country, and the industry of its people, but dropping a single seed in fertile soil.

Change | Character | Industry | Man | People |

J. de Finod

All bow to virtue and then walk away.

Character | Virtue | Virtue |

Benjamin Franklin

Education begins with life. Before we are aware the foundations of character are laid, and subsequent teaching avails but little to remove or alter them... If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Character | Education | Knowledge | Life | Life | Little | Man |

Owen Feltham

Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.

Character | Fear | Innocence | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nothing serves better to illustrate a man’s character than the things which he finds ridiculous. the ridiculous arises from a moral contrast which is innocently placed before the senses. The sensual man will often laugh when there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever it may be that moves him, he will always reveal the fact that he is pleased with himself.

Better | Character | Contrast | Man | Nothing | Will |

John W. Forney, fully John Wien Forney

Gratitude is the virtue most deified and most deserted. It is the ornament of rhetoric and the libel of practical life.

Character | Gratitude | Libel | Life | Life | Rhetoric | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

James T. Farrell, fully James Thomas Farrell

When a man thinks he is reading the character of another, he is often unconsciously betraying his own.

Character | Man | Reading |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses itself any reaction with regard to itself or its deeds. This virtue differs from and surpasses sincerity. We see many people who are sincere without being simple. They do not wish to be taken for other than what they are; but they are always fearing lest they should be taken for what they are not.

Character | Deeds | People | Regard | Simplicity | Sincerity | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |

William Godwin

All virtue is a compromise.

Character | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

The best general means to insure the profitable employment of our time is to accustom ourselves to living in continual dependence upon the Spirit of God and His law, receiving, every instant, whatever He is pleased to bestow; consulting Him in every action, and having recourse to Him in our weaker moments when virtue seems to fail.

Action | Character | Dependence | God | Law | Means | Spirit | Time | Virtue | Virtue | God |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts. They bravely unveil their weaknesses, their doubts, their defects. They are courageous. They boldly ride a-tilt against prejudices. They love their fellow-men profoundly. They are generous. They allow their hearts to expand. They have compassion for all forms of suffering. Pity is the very foundation-stone of Genius.

Character | Compassion | Defects | Genius | Hypocrisy | Love | Men | Pity | Suffering | Virtue | Virtue |

Benjamin Franklin

To be proud of virtue is to poison yourself with the antidote.

Character | Virtue | Virtue |

Bernard Gilpin

The habit of virtue cannot be formed in the closet; good habits are formed by acts of reason in a persevering struggle with temptation.

Character | Good | Habit | Reason | Struggle | Temptation | Virtue | Virtue |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Courage is a virtue only so far as it is directed by prudence.

Character | Courage | Prudence | Prudence | Virtue | Virtue |

Owen Feltham

Surely, if we considered detraction to be bred of envy, nested only in deficient minds, we should find that the applauding of virtue would win us far more honor than the seeking slyly to disparage it. That would show we loved what we commended, while this tells the world we grudge at what we want in ourselves.

Character | Envy | Honor | Virtue | Virtue | World |

John Cunningham Geikie

Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.

Character | Evil | Good | Life | Life |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.

Character | Solitude | World |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

The virtue of Paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.

Character | Obedience | Strength | Virtue | Virtue |

Aaron Hill

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature’s mark to know an honest heart by.

Character | Heart | Nature | Tears | Virtue | Virtue |

David Hummell Greer

The character of a people, like the character of a person, should not be measured by its worst, but rather by its best; and reckoned by that rule and by that standard.

Character | People | Rule |