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

Harold W Thompson

The generous heart should scorn a pleasure which gives others pain.

Character | Heart | Pain | Pleasure |

Richard Henry Stoddard

We love in others what we lack ourselves, and would be everything but what we are.

Character | Love |

Ganga Stone

The desire to serve others is the highest impulse of the human heart and the rewards of such service are beyond measure. If you wish to taste this, then just do it. Just take one step... You will see that the tyranny of self-concern, worry, and trivial pursuits can be released from your life with that single step. It doesn't really matter what you do, it only matters that you do it.

Character | Desire | Heart | Impulse | Life | Life | Self | Service | Taste | Tyranny | Will | Worry |

Nathan Söderblom

Saints are persons who make it easier for others to believe in God.

Character | God |

Ways of the Righteous, fully The Ways of Righteousness NULL

Approval-seeking destroys one’s good deeds. Instead of doing the proper thing for its own sake, an approval-seeker will always focus on how others will react to what he is doing... Flattering wrongdoers is the root of much harm. It can lead to others emulating their misdeeds.

Character | Deeds | Focus | Good | Harm | Will |

Alexander Ziskind Maimon

The only way to do good deeds without being motivated by the need for approval from others is to reach the level of considering praise and insults equal.

Character | Deeds | Good | Need | Praise | Deeds | Approval |

R. C. Allen, fully Robert Cameron Allen

Prejudice is thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant.

Prejudice | Thinking | Wisdom |

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all the others - his last breath.

Character |

Ray Lyman Wilbur

Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness.

Character | Wisdom | Think |

Morris Adler

There are those who are fearful to be alone with themselves. They run with the crowd not out of love for others but out of fear to remain alone with themselves, terrified lest they hear the voice of their own spirit, or fearful of remaining alone with their own void.

Fear | Love | Spirit | Wisdom |

Alexander Ziskind Maimon

When a person who has some personal suffering sees others empathize with him, he feels a degree of relief.

Character | Suffering |

Arthur Warwick

It is not good to speak of evil of all whom we know bad; it is worse to judge evil of any who may prove good. To speak ill upon knowledge shows a want of charity; to speak ill upon suspicion shows a want of honesty. I will not speak so bad as I know of many; I will not speak worse than I know of any. To know evil of others and not speak it, is sometimes discretion; to speak evils of others and not know it, is always dishonesty. He may be evil himself who speaks good of others upon knowledge, but he can never be good himself who speaks evil of others upon suspicion.

Character | Charity | Discretion | Dishonesty | Evil | Good | Honesty | Knowledge | Suspicion | Will |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

I give nothing as duties. What others give as duties I give as living impulses (shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)

Action | Character | Duty | Heart | Nothing |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Some things are hurrying into existence, and others are hurrying out of it; and of that which is coming into existence part is already extinguished. Motions and changes are continually renewing the world, just as the uninterrupted course of time is always renewing the infinite duration of ages. In this flowing stream, then on which there is no abiding, what is there of the things which hurry by on which a man would set a high price? It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows, which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.

Existence | Hurry | Love | Man | Price | Time | Wisdom | World |