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

Nicholas Rescher

Reason itself... demands that we recognize the limited place of the virtues of cognition, inquiry, and the cerebral side of life. An adequate account of rationality must rightly stress its importance and primacy while recognizing that the intellectual virtues are only limited components of the good life.

Character | Good | Inquiry | Life | Life | Rationality | Reason |

William Makepeace Thackeray

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.

Chance | Character | Life | Life | Nothing |

William Graham Sumner

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found the courage to say that there is none.

Character | Courage | Men | Happiness |

George Matthew Adams

Tension is a killer! Just relax and note the immediate effect. One of peace and ease of mind. One in which every organ of the body joins. In relaxation there is unity of mind, body and spirit.

Body | Mind | Peace | Spirit | Unity | Wisdom |

Avraham Yellin

When looking back at your past suffering, feel joy. They have already benefited you by atoning for your misdeeds and at present you no longer feel pain from those past misfortunes.

Character | Joy | Pain | Past | Present | Suffering |

Yitzchok Waldshein

To have peace of mind it is important that the place where you live and work is organized and clean.

Character | Important | Mind | Peace | Work |

Mary Antin, fully Mary Antin Grabau

It is not I that belong to the past, but the past that belongs to me.

Past | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.

Future | Past | Present | Wisdom |

Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe

You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.

Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |

Anaxagoras NULL

The descent to Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.

Wisdom |

Hugh Lawson White

When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. the future is yet in your power.

Character | Future | Mind | Mistake | Past | Power | Reason | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and one with, and the future is uncertain.

Future | Life | Life | Man | Past | Present | Wisdom |

George Matthew Adams

We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think we can! Every great achievement in this world was first carefully thought out... Think - but to a purpose. Think constructively. Think as you read. Think as you listen. Think as you travel and eyes reveal new situations. Think as you work daily at your place in life. There can be no advancement or success without serious thought.

Ability | Achievement | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Success | Thought | Wisdom | Work | World | Think | Thought |