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

Willard Quine, fully Willard Van Orman Quine

A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-Saxon monosyllables: ‘What is there?’ It can be answered, moreover, in a word - ‘Everything’.

Character | Simplicity |

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

Better | Character | Idleness | Ignorance | Knowledge | Men | Nothing | Study |

William Rowley

There’s no way to make sorrow light But in the noble bearing; be content; Blows given from heaven are our due punishment; All shipwrecks are not drownings; you see buildings Made fairer from their ruins.

Character | Heaven | Light | Sorrow | Wisdom |

William Robertson

Truth lies in character... Truth is a thing not of words, but of life and being.

Character | Life | Life | Truth | Words |

Nancy Reagan, born Anne Frances Robbins

Love means giving one’s self to another person fully, not just physically. When two people really love each other, this helps them to stay alive and grow. One must be loved to grow. Love’s such a precious and fragile thing that when it comes we have to hold on tightly. And when it comes, we’re very lucky because for some it never comes at all. If you have love, you’re wealthy in a way that can never be measured.

Character | Giving | Love | Means | People | Self |

Bernice Johnson Reagon

The thing that must survive you is not just the record of your practice, but the principles that are the basis of your practice.

Character | Practice | Principles |

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

There’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill-nature; the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.

Character | Good | Little | Malice | Nature |

Sydney Smith

One of the best methods of rendering study agreeable is to live with able men, and to suffer all those pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge always inflicts.

Character | Inferiority | Knowledge | Men | Study |

Alexander Smith

The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.

Character | Man | Time |

Albert Schweitzer

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Character | Example |

Edward C. Simmons

The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right.

Character | Failure | Right | Success | Failure |

Lillian Smith, fully Lillian Eugenia Smith

Freedom is a dreadful thing unless it goes hand in hand with responsibility. Democracy among men is a specter except when the hearts of men are mature.

Character | Democracy | Freedom | Men | Responsibility |