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

Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

You will be able to overcome desires without excessive difficulty when you become aware of their illusory nature. The pleasure of eating, for example, is really of very short duration. You feel the pleasure for only the short amount of time the food is in your mouth. As soon as you have swallowed the food, it is already forgotten... All physical pleasures are similar. Give the matter sufficient thought and you will realize that even the illusory good lasts only a short time. On the other hand, the negative consequences of physical pleasures can be severe and long lasting. A thinking person will definitely not want to place himself in a situation fraught with dangers for momentary pleasures. By habitually thinking about this truth, one will gradually be able to free himself from the prison of foolishly pursuing physical pleasures.

Character | Consequences | Difficulty | Example | Good | Nature | Pleasure | Prison | Thinking | Thought | Time | Truth | Will | Thought |

George Leonard, fully George Burr Leonard

We believe that all men somehow possess a divine potentiality... We reject the tired dualism that seeks God and human potentialities in denying the joy of the senses.

Character | God | Joy | Men | God |

Yechezkail Levenstein

After the death of a close relative, thoughts of sorrow and pain frequently enter a person’s mind even after the mourning period. When such thoughts arise, one should try to strengthen oneself to accept the Almighty’s judgment. Every time you successfully conquer self-pitying thoughts, you elevate yourself.

Character | Death | Judgment | Mind | Mourning | Pain | Self | Sorrow | Time |

Israel Salanter Lipkin

"Know thyself" means: devote time each day to studying yourself... ferreting out your weakness, working at self-improvement, purifying your immortal soul.

Character | Day | Improvement | Know thyself | Means | Self | Self-improvement | Soul | Time | Weakness |

Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck

Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul... No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.

Character | Contentment | Joy | Life | Life | Reward | Soul |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm, and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.

Better | Character | Enjoyment | Philosophy | Time |

Lynn Margulis and Carl Lindegren

New ideas have a hard time in science. They tend to be suppressed by arrogance - condemnation by acknowledged leaders in the field... Dogmatism restrains, iconoclasm liberates. Vanity, powermongering, avariciousness, pride, dedication, love, industry, sadism and most other attributes of people apply to science and to scientists as well.

Arrogance | Character | Dedication | Ideas | Industry | Love | People | Pride | Science | Time |

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Age, when it does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally returns to the milky disposition of infancy. Time as the same effect upon the mind as on the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more conspicuous from the others retiring.

Age | Character | Heart | Infancy | Mind | Passion | Temper | Time |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live.

Character | Men | Teach | Time |

William Nevins

Procrastination has been called a thief, the thief of time. I wish it were no worse than a thief. It is a murderer; and that which is kills is not time merely, but the immortal soul.

Character | Procrastination | Soul | Time |

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Time presupposes a view of time. It is, therefore, not like a river, not a flowing substance. The fact that the metaphor based on this comparison has persisted from the time of Heraclitus to our own day is explained by our surreptitiously putting into the river a witness of its course.

Character | Day | Time | Wisdom | Witness |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lend on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there by anything in our character worthy of imitation.

Beauty | Body | Character | Courtesy | Example | Grace | Imitation | Science | Time | Instruction | Beauty |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Anyone who has once been very foolish will never at any other time be very wise.

Character | Time | Will | Wise |

Luella F. Phelan

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. People grow old only by deserting their ideals and outgrowing the consciousness of youth. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. You are as old as your doubt; your fear; your despair. The way to keep young is to keep your faith young. Keep your self-confidence young. Keep your hope young.

Character | Confidence | Consciousness | Despair | Doubt | Enthusiasm | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ideals | Life | Life | Mind | People | Self | Self-confidence | Soul | Time | Youth | Old |

Pliny the Younger, full name Casus Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo NULL

The highest of characters, in my estimation, is his who is as ready to pardon the moral errors of mankind as if he were every day guilty of some himself; and at the same time as cautious of committing a fault as if he never forgave one.

Character | Day | Estimation | Fault | Mankind | Pardon | Time | Fault | Guilty |