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

John F. Milburn

Fear is like fire: If controlled it will help you; if uncontrolled, it will rise up and destroy you. Men's actions depend a great deal upon fear. We do things either because we enjoy doing them or because we are afraid not to do them. This sort of fear has not relation to physical or moral courage. It is inspired by the knowledge that we are not adequately prepared to face the future and the events it may bring - poverty perhaps, or injury, or death.

Character | Courage | Death | Destroy | Events | Fear | Future | Knowledge | Men | Poverty | Will | Afraid |

Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL

I maintain, in truth, that with a smile we should instruct our youth, be very gentle when we have to blame, and not to put them in fear of virtue's name.

Blame | Character | Fear | Smile | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Youth |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety.

Character | Fear | Man | Wants |

Yaakov Neiman

Every occurrence and situation in our lives can be utilized for elevation and growth. When a person’s main focus is growth, he will be able to have peace of mind regardless of what the specific situation is.

Character | Focus | Growth | Mind | Peace | Will |

Maurice Nicoll

Perhaps we scarcely notice that in every direction our natural understanding leads us to nothing. We come either to contradiction or to the unknown... We do not think of the growth of a seed in our world in the same way. We cannot imitate growth. Growth is from ‘inside’. Higher dimensions enter our world from inside, from the direction of the most minute.

Character | Contradiction | Growth | Nothing | Understanding | World | Think |

Neil Monro, sometimes wrote under pen name Hugh Foulis

To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of politeness.

Better | Character | Men | Science | System | Understanding |

José Joaquín de Olmedo, fully José Joaquín de Olmedo y Maruri

They set the slave free, striking off his chains. Then he was as much of a slave as ever. He was still chained to servility. He was still manacled to indolence and sloth, he was still bound by fear and superstition, by ignorance suspicion and savagery. His slavery was not in the chains, but in himself. They can only set free men free. And there is no need of that. Free men set themselves free.

Character | Fear | Ignorance | Indolence | Men | Need | Slavery | Sloth | Superstition | Suspicion |

Martha Pingel

As nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm, so happiness or peace of mind cannot be achieved without sharing oneself with others, serving those in need, whether materially or spiritually.

Character | Enthusiasm | Mind | Need | Nothing | Peace | Happiness |

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 |

Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

An undisturbed mind is the best sauce for affliction.

Affliction | Character | Mind |

Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

A well-balanced mind is the best remedy against affliction.

Affliction | Character | Mind |

James Northcote

Half the things that people do not succeed in, are through fear of making the attempt.

Character | Fear | People |

Jianzhi Sengcan, Third Patriarch of Zen, Third Patriarch of Ch'an

The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. A tenth of an inch’s difference, and heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike - this is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of the Way is not understood. Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose... Pursue not the outer entanglements, dwell not in the inner void; be serene in the oneness of things, and dualism vanishes of itself... Transformations going on in the empty world that confronts us appear to be real because of Ignorance. Do not strive to seek after the True, only cease to cherish opinions... One in all, All in One - if only this is realized, no more worry about not being perfect. When the mind and each believing mind and Mind, this is where words fail, for it is not of the past, present or future.

Character | Disease | Disguise | Earth | Future | Hate | Heaven | Ignorance | Love | Meaning | Mind | Oneness | Past | Peace | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Words | World | Worry |

Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.

Character | Fear | Men | Afraid |

François de La Noüe

The bravery founded on hope of recompense, fear of punishment, experience of success, on rage, or on ignorance of danger, is but common bravery, and does not deserve the name. True bravery proposes a just end; measures the dangers, and meets the result with calmness and unyielding decision.

Bravery | Calmness | Character | Danger | Decision | Experience | Fear | Hope | Ignorance | Punishment | Rage | Recompense | Success |

Francis Osborn

Leave your bed upon the first desertion of sleep it being ill for the eyes to read lying, and worse for the mind to be idle; since the head during that laziness is commonly a cage for unclean thoughts.

Character | Laziness | Lying | Mind | Wisdom |