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

Geoffrey Chaucer

For how might sweetness ever have been known to him who never tasted bitterness? Felicity exists for those alone who first have suffered sorrow and distress... By opposites does one in wisdom grow.

Bitterness | Character | Distress | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes he is no longer indispensable.

Character | Indispensable | Man | Wisdom |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

It is better that a judge should lean on the side of compassion than severity.

Better | Character | Compassion | Wisdom |

Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers, aka Jay David Whittaker Chambers

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness.

Character | Sadness | Sin | Suffering | Wisdom |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

There are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own soul - to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to God.

Character | God | Integrity | Peace | Sacrifice | Shame | Soul |

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 |

Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke

A clean and sensitive conscience, a steadfast and scrupulous integrity in small things as well as great, is the most valuable of all possessions, to a nation as to an individual.

Character | Conscience | Individual | Integrity | Possessions |

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie

All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope.

Character | Hope | Wisdom | Words |

William Cowper

Accomplishments have taken virtue’s place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace.

Character | Grace | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The first American mingled with her pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that his power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over “dumb creation”; on the other hand, speech to him is a perilous gift. He believes profoundly in silence - the sign of perfect equilibrium. silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The an who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.

Absolute | Arrogance | Balance | Body | Character | Conduct | Existence | Humility | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Power | Pride | Silence | Speech | Spirit | Superiority |

George Crabbe

In idle wishes fools supinely stay; be there a will, and wisdom finds a way.

Character | Will | Wisdom | Wishes |

William Cowper

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Character | Knowledge | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.

Character | Error | Future | Past | Success | Wisdom | Learn |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new, sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!

Character | Earth | Silence | Soul |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The Indians were religious from the first moments of life. From the moment of the mother’s recognition that she had conceived to the end of the child’s second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence was supremely important. Her attitude and secret meditations must be such to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the Great Mystery and a sense of connectedness with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for the expectant mother... Silence, love, reverence - this is the trinity of first lessons, and to these she later adds generosity, courage and chastity.

Character | Chastity | Courage | Generosity | Important | Influence | Isolation | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Mystery | Reverence | Rule | Sense | Silence | Soul | Child |

Karlfried Graf Von Dürckheim, fully Karl Friedrich Alfred Heinrich Ferdinand Maria Graf Eckbrecht von Dürckheim-Montmartin

“What” we do belongs to the world. In the “how,” the way we do it, we infallibly revel to ourselves whether our attitude is in harmony with the inner law or in contradiction to it, in accordance with our right form or opposed to it, open to Divine Being or closed to it. What is our right “form”? It is none other than that in which we are transparent to Divine Being. And to be transparent means that we are able to experience Divine Being in our selves and to reveal it in the world.

Character | Contradiction | Experience | Harmony | Law | Means | Right | World |

Dhammapada Sutra NULL

To establish ourselves amid perfect emptiness in a single flash is the essence of wisdom.

Character | Wisdom |

Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz

The honor-seeker does not study wisdom to become wiser. Rather his goal is to show off how wise he is. This is an attribute of a fool.

Character | Honor | Study | Wisdom | Wise |