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 Flavel

They that know God will be humble; they that know themselves cannot be proud.

Character | God | Will | God |

Clarence Francis

I sincerely believe that the word "relationships" is the key to the prospect of a decent world. It seems abundantly clear that every problem you will have - in your family, in your work, in our nation, or in this world - is essentially a matter of relationships, of interdependence.

Character | Family | Will | Work | World |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

What can be the aim of withholding from children, or let us say from young people, this information about the sexual life of human beings? Is it a fear of arousing interest in such matters prematurely, before it spontaneously stirs in them? Is it a hope of retarding by concealment of this kind the development of the sexual instinct in general, until such time as it can find its way into the only channels open to it in the civilized social order? Is it supposed that children would show no interest or understanding for the facts and riddles of sexual life if they were not prompted to do so by outside influence? Is it regarded as possible that the knowledge withheld from them will not reach them in other ways? Or is it genuinely and seriously intended that later on they should consider everything connected with sex as something despicable and abhorrent from which their parents and teachers wish to keep them apart as long as possible? I am really at a loss so say which of these can be the motive for the customary concealment from children of everything connected with sex. I only know that these arguments are one and all equally foolish, and that I find it difficult to pay them the compliment of serious refutation.

Character | Children | Concealment | Fear | Hope | Influence | Instinct | Knowledge | Life | Life | Order | Parents | People | Time | Understanding | Will | Loss |

Owen Feltham

He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who so lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.

Character | Death | God | Happy | Leisure | Man | Neglect | God |

Owen Feltham

Riches, though they may reward virtues, yet they cannot cause them; he is much more noble who deserves a benefit than he who bestows one.

Cause | Character | Reward | Riches |

Henry Fielding

A tender-hearted and compassionate disposition, which inclines men to pity and feel the misfortunes of others, and which is, even for its own sake, incapable of involving any man in ruin and misery, is of all tempers of mind the most amiable; and though it seldom receives much honor, is worthy of the highest.

Character | Honor | Man | Men | Mind | Pity |

Henry Fielding

Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none.

Character | Custom | Man |

T. L. Fine, fully Terrence L. Fine

Too keen an eye for pattern will find it anywhere.

Character | Will |

Henry Ford

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.

Character | Men | Will | World | Think |

Benjamin Franklin

Be sober and temperate and you will be healthy.

Character | Will |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

The educability of a young person as a rule comes to an end when sexual desire breaks out in its final strength. Educators know this and act accordingly; but perhaps they will yet allow themselves to be influenced by the results of psycho-analysis so that they will transfer the main emphasis in education to the earliest years of childhood, from the suckling period onward. The little human being is frequently a finished product in his fourth or fifth year, and only gradually reveals in later years what lies buried in him.

Character | Childhood | Desire | Education | Little | Rule | Strength | Will |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In the works of man as in those of nature, it is the intention which is chiefly worth studying.

Character | Intention | Man | Nature | Worth |

Owen Feltham

I love the man that is modestly valiant; that stirs not till he most needs, and then to purpose. A continued patience I commend not.

Character | Love | Man | Patience | Purpose | Purpose |

Vardis Fisher, fully Vardis Alvero Fisher

Do people love truth? On the contrary, mankind has employed its subtlest ingenuity and intelligence in efforts to evade or conceal it... Do human beings love justice? The sordid travesties in our courts year after year suggest that they love justice only for themselves. Do they love peace? Can anyone seriously ask the question? Do they love freedom? Only for those who share their views. Love of peace, freedom, justice, truth - this is a myth that has been created by the folk mind, and if the artist does not look behind the myth to the reality, he will indeed wander amid the phantoms which he creates.

Character | Freedom | Ingenuity | Intelligence | Justice | Love | Mankind | Mind | Myth | Peace | People | Question | Reality | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Ingenuity |

Karl Emil Franzos

Through himself alone can man be redeemed - through himself and in himself.

Character | Man | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

There was never yet a truly great man that was not able at the same time to be truly virtuous.

Character | Man | Time |

Edgar Z. Friedenberg

In a world as empirical as ours, a youngster who does not know what he is good at will not be sure what he is good for.

Character | Good | Will | Wisdom | World |