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

George Matthew Adams

One of the great arts in living is to learn the art of accurately appraising values. Everything that we think, that we earn, that we have given to us, that in any way touches our consciousness, has its own value. These values are apt to change with the mood, with time, or because of circumstances. We cannot safely tie to any material value. The values of all material possessions change continually, sometimes over night. The real values are those that stay by you, give you happiness and enrich you. They are the human values.

Art | Change | Character | Circumstances | Consciousness | Possessions | Time | Art | Happiness | Learn |

J.M. Barrie, fully Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet

The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather.

Character | Love | Praise | Wisdom |

Amen-em-apt NULL

Better is the praise and love of men than riches in the storehouse.

Better | Character | Love | Men | Praise | Riches | Wisdom | Riches |

Max Brod

The greatness of a nation does not depend on the character of its blood or race... [but] consists of the values it produces.

Character | Greatness | Race |

Lowell Fillmore

We can help raise our standard by praising the good whenever and wherever we find it. As we praise the good at hand we grow in our ability to find more good.

Ability | Character | Good | Praise |

Henry Fielding

We should not be too hasty in bestowing either our praise or censure on mankind, since we shall often find such a mixture of good and evil in the same character, that it may require a very accurate judgment and a very elaborate inquiry to determine on which side the balance turns.

Balance | Censure | Character | Evil | Good | Inquiry | Judgment | Mankind | Praise |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame.

Blame | Character | Praise | Sympathy |

W. T. Grant, fully William Thomas Grant

It must be obvious to those who take the time to look at human life that its greatest values lie not in getting things, but in doing them, in doing them together, in all working toward a common aim, in the experience of comradeship, of warmhearted 100% human life.

Character | Experience | Life | Life | Time |

John P. Grier

The function of values is to give us the illusion of purpose in life.

Character | Illusion | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The idolatrous worship of ethical values in and for themselves defeats its own object - and defeats it not only because... there is a lack of all-around development, but also and above all because even the highest forms of moral idolatry are God-eclipsing and therefore guarantee the idolater against the enlightening and liberating knowledge of Reality.

Character | God | Guarantee | Knowledge | Object | Reality | Worship |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Our inward values and judgments are based on pleasure, not on any great, tremendous principles, but just on pleasure... The active principle of our life is pleasure.

Character | Life | Life | Pleasure | Principles |

Walter G. MacPeek

Sometimes great life-changing values come to us in brief moments of contact with high-potential personalities.

Character | Life | Life |

Richard Sibbes

Our whole life should speak forth our thankfulness; every condition and place we are in should be a witness to our thankfulness. This will make the times and places we live in better for us. When we ourselves are monuments of God’s mercy, it is fit we should be patterns of His praises, and leave monuments to others. We should think it given to us to do something better than to live in. We live not to live: our life is not the end of itself, but the praise of the giver.

Better | Character | God | Life | Life | Mercy | Praise | Thankfulness | Will | Witness | Think |

Marya Mannes

Minds are cluttered from the age of six with the values of others - values which bear little relation to their own private capacities, needs and desires.

Age | Character | Little |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

No young man is educated if he comes out of college with the cheap and false values of the common man.

Character | Man | Wisdom |

Maurice Nicoll

The time-man in us does not know now. He is always preparing something in the future, or busy with what happened in the past... All decisions that belong to the life in time, to success, to business, comfort, are about ‘tomorrow’. All decisions about the right thing to do, about how to act, are about tomorrow. It is only what is done in now that counts, and this is a decision always about oneself and with oneself, even though its effect may touch other people’s lives ‘tomorrow’. Now is spiritual... Spiritual values have nothing to do with time.

Business | Character | Comfort | Decision | Future | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Past | People | Right | Success | Time | Tomorrow |

Robert M. Pirsig

So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.

Character | Mind | Peace | Reflection | Right | Self | Serenity | Will | Work |