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

Yehuda Leib Chasman

Envy is such a part of many people’s personalities that it is not reasonable to expect them to completely eradicate this trait. Rather, they should channel it in a positive direction. Let them envy those with wisdom so they will try to gain more wisdom.

Character | Envy | People | Will | Wisdom |

Howard Cosell, fully Howard William Cosell, born Howard William Cohen

Courage takes many forms. there is physical courage, there is moral courage. Then there is a still higher type of courage - the courage to brave pain, to live with it, to never let others know of it and to still find joy in life; to wake up in the morning with an enthusiasm for the day ahead.

Character | Courage | Day | Enthusiasm | Joy | Life | Life | Pain |

Jeremy Collier

How are such an infinite number of things placed with such order in the memory, notwithstanding the tumult, marches, and counter-marches of the animal spirits?

Character | Memory | Order |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

We must be fond of the world, even in order to change it.

Change | Character | Order | World |

Friedrich Engels

The freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, an control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.

Character | Choice | Control | Freedom | Ignorance | Judgment | Knowledge | Man | Nature | Necessity | Object | Question | Uncertainty | Will |

Tyron Edwards

Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world.

Character | God | Morality | Piety | Religion | Spirit | World |

Albert Einstein

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.

Character | Day | Earth | Fate | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mind | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Smile | Sympathy | Work | Fate | Happiness |

Alighieri Dante

Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must realize that the basic principle of our freedom is freedom to choose, which saying many have on their lips but few in their minds.

Character | Freedom | Liberty | Mankind | Will |

Clarence Shepard Day, Jr.

Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality.

Character | Reality |

Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"

We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less.

Character | Order |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himsefl without love he gives away his passions and coarse pleasuures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himsefl. The man wholies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone.

Character | Distinguish | Love | Lying | Man | Men | Order | Respect | Truth | Respect |

Douglas L. Edmonds, fully Douglas Lyman Edmonds

How many of us are waiting for the opportunity to do some great thing for the betterment of our community, forgetting that the solution of the problem requires only the active intelligent fulfillment of individual civic duty. The only things which are wrong about our Government are the things which are wrong with you and me. Democracy is never a thing done; it is and always will be a goal to be achieved. It means action, not passive acquiescence in things as they are; it requires alertness to duty, a dynamic faith, a willingness to give for the good of all. It can live only as a result of loyalty and devotion to its principles expressed by daily needs.

Action | Character | Democracy | Devotion | Duty | Dynamic | Faith | Fulfillment | Good | Government | Individual | Loyalty | Loyalty | Means | Opportunity | Principles | Waiting | Will | Wrong | Government |

Orville Dewey

How many a knot of mystery and misunderstanding would be untied by one word spoken in simple and confiding truth of heart! How many a solitary place would be made glad if love were there, and how many a dark dwelling would be filled with light!

Character | Circumstances | Existence | Future | Life | Life | Love | Mystery | Teach | Truth |