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

H. E. Stocher

Research teaches a man to admit he is wrong and to be proud of the fact that he does so, rather than try with all his energy to defend an unsound plan because he is afraid that admission of error is a confession of weakness when rather it is a sign of strength.

Energy | Error | Man | Plan | Research | Strength | Weakness | Wisdom | Wrong | Afraid |

Daniel Cosgrove Waterland

The heart commonly govern the head; and any strong passion, set the wrong way, will soon infatuate even the wisest of men; therefore the first part of wisdom is to watch the affections.

Heart | Men | Passion | Will | Wisdom | Wrong | Govern |

Arthur Warwick

There are two things necessary for a traveler to bring him to the end of his journey - a knowledge of his way, a perseverance in his walk. If he walk in a wrong way, the faster he goes the farther he is from home; if he sit still in the right way, he may know his home, but never come to it: discreet stays make speedy journeys. I will first then know my way, ere I begin my walk; the knowledge of my way is a good part of my journey.

Good | Journey | Knowledge | Perseverance | Right | Will | Wisdom | Wrong |

Sven Birkerts

The reality of life is that your perceptions -- right or wrong -- influence everything else you do. When you get a proper perspective of your perceptions, you may be surprised how many other things fall into place.

Influence | Life | Life | Reality | Right | Wrong |

Joyce Cary

One does not fear God because He is terrible, but because he is literally the soul of goodness and truth, because to do him wrong is to do wrong to some mysterious part of oneself.

Fear | God | Soul | Truth | Wrong | God |

Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter

What is wrong with our culture is that it often offers us an inaccurate conception of the self. It depicts the personal self as existing in competition with and in opposition with and in opposition to nature. We thereby fail to realize that if we destroy our environment, we are destroying what is in fact our larger self.

Competition | Culture | Destroy | Nature | Opposition | Self | Wrong |

Norman F. Dixon

The apportioning of blame [is] the means by which society obtains a modicum of revenge for the wrong it has suffered, expiates its own guilt for such responsibility as it may have had for the event in question, and finally seeks to prevent a repetition of the disaster.

Blame | Guilt | Means | Question | Responsibility | Revenge | Society | Wrong | Society |

Albert Einstein

The more cruel the wrong that men commit against an individual or a people, the deeper their hatred and contempt for their victim. Conceit and false pride on the part of a nation prevent the rise of remorse for its crime.

Contempt | Crime | Individual | Men | People | Pride | Remorse | Wrong |

John Cogley

Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human.

Respect | Right | Wrong | Respect |

P. T. Forsyth, fully Peter Taylor Forsyth

War is the greatest of all the awful and complex moral situations of the world - second only to the final judgment day… It is a moral pestilence. It is wrong on both sides.

Day | Judgment | War | World | Wrong |

James Frazer, aka James George Frazer

The old view that the principles of right and wrong are immutable and eternal is no longer tenable. The moral world is as little exempt as the physical world from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux.

Change | Eternal | Law | Little | Principles | Right | World | Wrong | Old |

Aelred Graham

When thinking of sinners we shall never go wrong to include ourselves.

Thinking | Wrong |

Aelred Graham

Where religion goes wrong it is because, in one form or another, men have made the mistake of trying to turn to God without turning away from self.

God | Men | Mistake | Religion | Self | Wrong | God |

Tom Gregory

There is nothing wrong with questioning the teachings of one’s religion. It is an act of spiritual maturity, not of disobedience or disrespect. Religions may have been inspired by God, but they have evolved as human institutions. So, they are not infallible.

Disobedience | Disrespect | God | Nothing | Religion | Wrong |

Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith

Life is like a tapestry that we view from the wrong side. We see all the strands and knots, and it makes no sense from the back. But there is a different view of the whole things to which we are assured some day we will be privy. In the meanwhile, there are all these knots we have to deal with existentially; the path has been charted – compassion and justice – imbued by vision. And it’s up to the individual.

Compassion | Day | Individual | Justice | Life | Life | Sense | Vision | Will | Wrong |

Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Earth | Man | Nothing | Right | Wrong |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The conscience is… a brake, not a guide; a fence, not a way. It raises its voice after a wrong deed has been committed, but often fails to give us direction in advance of our actions.

Conscience | Wrong |

William James

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil.

Conduct | Evil | Good | Hell | Theology | Will | World | Wrong |

Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley

Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.

Conduct | Thinking | Wrong |