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

Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL

Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to. Many such things are proved by their contraries.

Character | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Virtue | Virtue |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The savage lives within himself, while social man lives constantly outside himself, and only knows how to live in the opinion of others, so that he seems to receive the consciousness of his own existence merely from the judgment of others concerning him.

Character | Consciousness | Existence | Judgment | Man | Opinion | Receive |

Moshe Rosenstein, fully Moshe ben Chaim Rosenstein

A person who appreciates that the Almighty created everything in the world for his benefit is aware of the multitude of good things he has in the world. With this appreciation, no one considers himself poor in comparison to anyone else just because the other person has a little more than him. Even the poorest person in the world has many things for which to be thankful. Everyone has the ability to be in a state of happiness. Do not allow another person’s having more than you rob you of your happiness.

Ability | Appreciation | Character | Good | Little | World |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

When a law is proposed in the people’s assembly, what is asked of them is not precisely whether they approve of the proposition or reject it, but whether it is in conforming with the general will which is theirs; each by giving his vote gives his opinion on this question, and the counting of votes yields a declaration of the general will. When, therefore, the opinion contrary to my own prevails, this proves only that I have made a mistake, and that what I believed to be the general will was not so. If my particular opinion had prevailed against the general will, I should have done something other than what I had willed, and then I should not have been free. This presupposes, it is true, that all characteristics of the general will are still to be found in the majority; when these cease to be there, no matter what position men adopt, there is no longer any freedom.

Character | Freedom | Giving | Law | Majority | Men | Mistake | Opinion | People | Position | Question | Will |

Publius Syrus

He whom many fear, has himself many to fear.

Character | Fear |

Phyllis V. Schlemmer and Dalden Jenkins

Our bodies and egos are vehicles by which we can access the experience of physical living. As a key ingredient in an automobile is its driver, so the key ingredient in a person is soul. Without active alignment to soul - a person is lost - the fundamental meaning of life is missing. Planet Earth is a sort of “soul-field”, a body of experience with a characteristic flavor, which individual souls enter to learn, evolve and serve. Perhaps it is a Hall of Mirrors at a fairground, where we see ourselves reflected, expanded and compressed in so many different ways.

Body | Character | Earth | Experience | Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Soul |

Madame de Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

Nothing is more certain of destroying any good feeling that may be cherished towards us than to show distrust. To be suspected as an enemy is often enough to make a man become so; the whole matter is over, there is no farther use of guarding against it. On the contrary, confidence leads us naturally to act kindly, we are affected by the good opinion which others entertain of us, and we are not easily induced to lose it.

Character | Confidence | Distrust | Enemy | Enough | Good | Man | Nothing | Opinion |

George Savile, fully Sir George Savile, 1st Marquis of Halifax

They who are of the opinion that Money will do everything, may; very well be suspected to do everything for Money.

Character | Money | Opinion | Will |

Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar

Our philosophy determines the quality of our life.... how many times you go through those ups and downs you maintain your Divine changelessness.

Character | Life | Life | Philosophy |

John Selden

Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.

Character | Man | Opinion | Thought |

J. L. Schnadig

Don't judge a man by his opinion of himself.

Character | Man | Opinion |

Janet Erskine Stuart, known as Mother Janet Stuart

People of many kinds ask questions, but few and rare people listen to answers. Why?

Character | People |

Sydney Smith

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

Character | Existence | Life | Life | Love | Happiness |