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

James Russell Lowell

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.

Action | Character | World |

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.

Character | Despair | Evil | World |

Layne Longfellow

You can only know the world through the world that you have known.

Character | Wisdom | World |

George Henry Lewes

Among the many strong servilities mistaken for piety, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world and vilifying human nature.

Character | God | Human nature | Nature | Piety | World | God |

James Russell Lowell

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weight less than a single lovely action.

Action | Character | Man | World |

James Russell Lowell

Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.

Character | Day | World |

Alexander Macleod

The influence of individual character extends from generation to generation. The world is molded by it.

Character | Individual | Influence | World |

Celia Luce

A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it too close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at a proper viewing distance and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway to eternity.

Character | Eternity | Focus | Wisdom | World | Trouble |

Chief Luther Standing Bear

Everything was possessed of personality, only different from us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns, and that was to feel beauty... Observation was certain to have its rewards. Interest, wonder, admiration grew, and the fact was appreciated that life was more than mere human manifestation; it was expressed in a multitude of forms. This appreciation enriched Lakota existence. Life was vivid and pulsating; nothing was casual and commonplace. The Indian lived - lived in every sense of the word - from his first to his last breath.

Admiration | Appreciation | Beauty | Blessings | Books | Character | Earth | Existence | Knowledge | Life | Life | Nature | Nothing | Observation | Personality | Sense | Wonder | World | Appreciation |

Rosa Luxemburg, aka Rosalia Luxemburg, "Bloody Rosa"

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

Character | Freedom | Wisdom |

John Lubbock, fully Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury

The world would be both better and brighter if we would dwell on the duty of happiness, as well as on the happiness of duty.

Better | Character | Duty | World | Happiness |

Alexander Maclaren

Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?

Character | Eternity | Hunger | Need | Possessions | Thought | Time | Trifles | Will | Thought |

Eda J. LeShan

We are not asking our children to do their own best but to be the best. Education is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. The majority of our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top.

Character | Children | Danger | Doctrine | Education | Failure | Fear | Majority | Religion | World | Danger | Failure |

John Locke

I think there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason: which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd if they were innate; or so much as self-evident, which every innate principle must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain its approbation.

Absurd | Character | Man | Need | Reason | Rule | Self | Truth | Think |

John E. Large, fully John Ellis Large

Social security depends on personal security. And personal security depends on spiritual security. Spiritual security is primary, in the sense that every other kind of security stems from it. Without spiritual security, there just can’t be any other kind of lasting security.

Character | Security | Sense |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

When a person is born, he finds the world in a certain organized fashion. As he grows up, he tries to adjust himself to the assumptions that are accepted in the world. He views each event that occurs with the same perspective as the other people of his generation. These perspectives originated in the past and have been handed down from parents to children. These assumptions are taken for granted to such an extent that most people react to the accepted perspective of the world as if they were laws of the universe that cannot be changed. They are accepted as reality and are not challenged. Only a small minority of people obtain the necessary wisdom to look at the world with complete objectivity. They take a critical look at teach and every thing and try to understand everything as it really is instead of accepting the general prevalent outlook. Those who try to investigate the origin of every perspective will perceive everything in a much different light than is commonly accepted.

Character | Children | Light | Objectivity | Parents | Past | People | Reality | Teach | Universe | Will | Wisdom | World | Understand |

Gaius Lucilius

Nothing is enough for a fool, though all the world is his.

Character | Enough | Nothing | World |

Yehuda Leib of Ofina

One satisfied with what he has is richer than everyone else in the world who has ore but is not satisfied with his lot. Keep your focus on what you have and not on what someone else has.

Character | Focus | World |

Yechezkail Levenstein

The commandment to love the Almighty requires that we should be willing to give up our lives if necessary out of love for Him. If a person has internalized that in reality he is a soul and his body is merely an outer garment that he temporarily wears, he will find it relatively easy to fulfill the commandment of giving up his life is need be. He does not feel as if he is sacrificing himself for he always retains his soul. His body which he is sacrificing is not himself but only an outer garment. For such a person giving up his life is not the ultimate sacrifice since his body is not an integral part of his identity.

Body | Character | Giving | Life | Life | Love | Need | Reality | Sacrifice | Soul | Will |