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

Arthur Aughey

It is one of the worst of errors to suppose that there is any other path of safety except that of duty.

Character | Duty |

George Bancroft

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

Character | Conscience |

Margaret M. Butts

Learn to laugh. And most of all, learn to laugh at yourself. The person who can give a riotous account of his own faux pas, will never have to listen to another's embarrassing account of it. He will rarely know the sting of humiliation. His a delight to be with, but more important, he is enjoying his own life, and applying to his ills and errors the most soothing balm the human spirit has devised - laughter.

Character | Important | Laughter | Life | Life | Spirit | Will | Wisdom | Learn |

Morris Ernst, fully Morris Leopold Ernst

More errors arise from inhibited indecision than from impulsive behavior.

Behavior | Character | Indecision | Wisdom |

Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.

Character | Men |

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 |

Thomas Binney

All errors spring up in the neighborhood of some truth; they grow round about it, and, for the most part, deprive their strength from such contiguity.

Strength | Truth | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

All the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and passions of humanity.

Humanity | Knowledge | Wisdom |

Donald Davidson

False beliefs tend to undermine the identification of the subject matter; to undermine, therefore, the validity of a description of the belief as being about that subject... The more things a believer is right about, the sharper his errors are. To much mistake simply blurs the focus.

Belief | Focus | Mistake | Right | Wisdom |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

Enthusiasm | Indifference | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A man’s errors are what make him amiable.

Man | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.

Man | Nature | Right | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Without my work in natural science I should never have known human beings as they really are. In no other activity can one come so close to direct perception and clear thought, or realize so fully the errors of the senses, the mistakes of the intellect, the weakness and greatnesses of human character.

Character | Perception | Science | Thought | Weakness | Wisdom | Work |

David Hume

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

Philosophy | Religion | Wisdom |

Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover

You cannot extend the mastery of the government over the daily working life of a people without at the same time making it the master of the people’s souls and thoughts. Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.

Business | Commerce | Consequences | Control | Free speech | Government | Industry | Life | Life | Means | Order | Peace | People | Speech | Time | Wisdom | Government | Business | Commerce |

Max Müller, fully Friedrich Max Müller

In order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries.

Order | Truth | Wisdom |

Publius Syrus

From the errors of others a wise man corrects his own.

Man | Wisdom | Wise |