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

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize you have enough, you are truly rich.

Enough | Intelligence | Knowing | Power | Strength | Wisdom |

Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

Sick or well, blind or seeing, bond or free, we are here for a purpose and however we are situated, we please God better with useful deeds than with many prayers or pious resignation. The temple or church is empty unless the good life fill it. The altar is holy if only it represents the altar of our heart upon which we offer the only sacrifices ever commanded – the love that is stronger than hate and the faith that overcometh doubt.

Better | Church | Deeds | Doubt | Faith | God | Good | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Pious | Purpose | Purpose | Resignation | Deeds | God |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled. If you happiness depends on money you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Failure | Fame | Fulfillment | Happy | Important | Integrity | Money | Nothing | Success | Will | World | Happiness |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false, and the false with the true.

Hate | Man | Objectivity | Personality | Sense | Ugly | Unity |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

He who is able to conquer others is powerful; he who is able to conquer himself is more powerful.

Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Compassion | Happy | Practice |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

The sage does not accumulate for himself. The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own. The way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.

Heaven |

Golda Meir, originally named Goldie Mabovitch, later Goldie Myerson

There’s no difference between one’s killing and making decisions that will send others to kill. It’s exactly the same thing, or even worse.

Kill | Will |

Thomas Merton

We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is a matter of sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, if we really love others it will not be too hard to like them also. If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond.

Good | Love | People | Sense | Will | Trouble | Understand |

Douglas Meeks, also M. Douglas Meeks

The mystery of idolatry is that persons reflect what they possess. Idolatry is being possessed by a possession and thereby refusing God’s claim on oneself and shirking one’s responsibility toward others in the community.

God | Mystery | Responsibility |

Vince Lombardi, fully Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.

Knowledge | Strength | Will |

Mary Lyon, fully Mary Mason Lyon

Nine-tenths of our suffering is caused by others not thinking so much of us as we think they ought.

Suffering | Thinking | Think |

Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao

Complacency is the enemy. We cannot really learn anything until we rid ourselves of complacency. Our attitude towards ourselves should be “insatiable in learning” and towards others to be “tireless in teaching.”

Complacency | Enemy | Learning | Learn |

Samuel H. Miller

A sound belief is always accompanied by a sane skepticism. It is only by disbelieving in some things that we can ever believe in others things. Faith does not mean credulity.

Belief | Faith | Skepticism | Sound |

Bibhuti Mazumder

If you want joy and happiness, serve others with what you cherish most… Life expands or shrinks in proportion to the act of giving.

Giving | Joy | Life | Life |

Mir Taqi Mir, real name was Muhammad Taqi

If you have yourself come to God, the others too are seeking Him; however different be the ways the destination is the same.

God |

Aubrey Menen, formally Salvator Aubrey Clarence Menen

There are no national virtues. We are alone, each one of us. If we are good, the virtues of others will not make us better. We cannot borrow morals.

Better | Good | Will |

Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

To do unto all men as you would wish to have done unto you, and to reject for others what you would reject for yourself.

Men |

Thomas Merton

My only task is to be what I am, a man seeking God in silence and solitude, with respect for the demands and realities of his own vocation, and fully aware that others too are seeking the truth in their own way.

God | Man | Respect | Silence | Solitude | Truth | Respect | God |