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 Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Habit is the beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectfully and unhappy men to live calmly.

Habit | Men | Wisdom |

Nathanael Emmons, also Nathaniel Emmons

One principal reason why men are so often useless is, that they divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

Attention | Men | Reason | Wisdom |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for the crime.

Blame | Crime | Man | Men | Wisdom |

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

It is unfortunate that superior talent and superior men are so seldom united.

Men | Wisdom | Talent |

David Eugene Edwards

If by saying that all men are born free and equal, you mean that they are all equally born; it is true, but true in no other sense; birth, talent, labor, virtue, and providence, are forever making differences.

Birth | Labor | Men | Providence | Sense | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.

Cooperation | Justice | Men | Trust | Wisdom |

Thomas Dreier

That person lives in hell who gets what he desires too soon. Whether he finds his happiness in wealth, power, fame or women, or in a combination of all, that happiness will be meaningless if it robs him of his desire. Heaven is a country through which we are permitted to search eagerly and with hope for what we want.

Desire | Fame | Heaven | Hell | Hope | Power | Search | Wealth | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Albert Einstein

In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long days' work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations.

Labor | Men | Peace | War | Wisdom | Work |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

Innovators and men of genius have almost always been regarded as fools at the beginning (and very often at the end) of their careers.

Beginning | Genius | Men | Wisdom |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or the other can worship, but to find something that all would believe and worship; what is essential is that all may be together in it. This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity form the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they’ve slain each other with the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, “Put away your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!”

Beginning | Dispute | Humanity | Kill | Man | Men | Nothing | Time | Will | Wisdom | Worship |

Abba Eban, born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

History | Men | Nations | Wisdom |

Frederic Eggleston, fully Sir Frederic William Eggleston

The great task of peace is to work morals into it. The only sort of peace that will be real is one in which everybody takes his share or responsibility. World organizations and conferences will be of no value unless there is improvement in the relation of men to men.

Improvement | Men | Peace | Responsibility | Will | Wisdom | Work | World | Value |

Albert Einstein

Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all men are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all men, shall we be able to speak of mankind as civilized.

Life | Life | Mankind | Men | Obligation | Wisdom |

Henry Fielding

Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.

Absolute | Despair | Events | Men | Wisdom | World |

Henry Ford

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.

Capacity | Men | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

9 Men in 10 are suicides.

Men | Wisdom |

Euripedes NULL

His worth shines forth the brightest who in hope always confides; the abject soul despairs.

Hope | Soul | Wisdom | Worth |