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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Ah, how happy would many lives be if individuals troubled themselves as little about other people’s affairs as about their own!

Character | Happy | Little | People |

John T. McNicholas, fully John Timothy McNicholas

The God-given rights of parents are not understood or are ignored by our secularist educators and by many school administrators who, in the delusion of sovereignty, act as though they, not the parents, have complete control of the education of the child.

Character | Control | Delusion | Education | God | Parents | Rights |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Here is a wonder: we have many more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to create it than to understand it. On a certain low level it can be judged by precepts and by art. But the good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason.

Art | Character | Good | Poetry | Reason | Wonder | Understand |

Publius Syrus

An angry lover tells himself many lies.

Character |

William Penn

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.

Better | Character | Evil | God | Temptation | Wisdom | Temptation |

Plotinus NULL

For most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe - much as the poisonous snake has it use - though in most cases their function is unknown. Vice itself has many useful sides: it brings about much that is beautiful, in artistic creations for example, and it stirs us to thoughtful living, not allowing us to drowse in security.

Character | Evil | Example | Security | Universe | Vice |

Itzhak Perlman

Ask many of us who are disabled what we would like in life and you would be surprised how few would say, 'Not to be disabled.' We accept our limitations.

Character | Life | Life |

Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL

Vice, the opposite of virtue, shows us more clearly what virtue is. Justice becomes more obvious when we have injustice to compare it to. Many such things are proved by their contraries.

Character | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Virtue | Virtue |

Moshe Rosenstein, fully Moshe ben Chaim Rosenstein

A person who appreciates that the Almighty created everything in the world for his benefit is aware of the multitude of good things he has in the world. With this appreciation, no one considers himself poor in comparison to anyone else just because the other person has a little more than him. Even the poorest person in the world has many things for which to be thankful. Everyone has the ability to be in a state of happiness. Do not allow another person’s having more than you rob you of your happiness.

Ability | Appreciation | Character | Good | Little | World |

Publius Syrus

He whom many fear, has himself many to fear.

Character | Fear |

Phyllis V. Schlemmer and Dalden Jenkins

Our bodies and egos are vehicles by which we can access the experience of physical living. As a key ingredient in an automobile is its driver, so the key ingredient in a person is soul. Without active alignment to soul - a person is lost - the fundamental meaning of life is missing. Planet Earth is a sort of “soul-field”, a body of experience with a characteristic flavor, which individual souls enter to learn, evolve and serve. Perhaps it is a Hall of Mirrors at a fairground, where we see ourselves reflected, expanded and compressed in so many different ways.

Body | Character | Earth | Experience | Individual | Life | Life | Meaning | Soul |

Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar

Our philosophy determines the quality of our life.... how many times you go through those ups and downs you maintain your Divine changelessness.

Character | Life | Life | Philosophy |

Janet Erskine Stuart, known as Mother Janet Stuart

People of many kinds ask questions, but few and rare people listen to answers. Why?

Character | People |