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

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.

Character | Man | Wise | Govern |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Character | Man | Right | Wise | Happiness |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear because to a clear why.

Character | Wise | Words |

James Russell Lowell

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is a temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

Character | Good | Politics | Statesmanship | Wise |

John Lubbock, fully Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

A wise system of education will at least teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.

Character | Education | Little | Man | System | Teach | Will | Wise |

Lin-chi, also Lin-chi Yi-sen, Lin-chi I-hsuan, Rinzai, Rinzai Gigen, Linji, Línjì Yìxuán NULL

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.

Character | Men | Will | Wise |

Leibush Malbim, aka Malbim, Rabbi Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michal "the Malbim", Meïr Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Weiser

It is a common sense and self-interest to refrain from lashing out immediately to avenge an injury. A higher level of humanity is entirely overcoming feelings of vengeance in one’s heart. This is the glory of the morally wise man.

Character | Common Sense | Feelings | Glory | Heart | Humanity | Man | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Vengeance | Wise |

Walter Savage Landor

It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires.

Belief | Character | Wise |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the repose of minds.

Character | Mortal | Repose | Wisdom | Wise |

Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.

Behavior | Character | Man | Moderation | Patience | Wise |

Abraham M Myerson

The wise man does not expect consistency or harmony... for he sees that man is a mosaic of characteristics and qualities that only rarely achieve an internal and intrinsic harmony.

Character | Consistency | Harmony | Man | Qualities | Wise |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. But yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it, like Herillus the philosopher, who placed in it the sovereign good, and held that it was in its power to make us wise and content. That I do not believe, nor what others have said, that knowledge is the mother of all virtue, and all vice is produced by ignorance. If that is true, it is subject to a long interpretation.

Character | Despise | Enough | Evidence | Extreme | Good | Ignorance | Knowledge | Mother | Power | Stupidity | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wise | Value | Vice |

Gnaeus Naevius

In extremity, they are wise too late.

Character | Wise |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity, say the wise men.

Character | Imagination | Men | Opportunity | Wise |