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

Sydney Smith

It is the calling of great men, not so much to preach new truths, as to rescue from oblivion those old truths which it is our wisdom to remember and our weakness to forget.

Character | Men | Oblivion | Weakness | Wisdom | Old | Truths |

Albert Schweitzer

Wherever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilization and morals are shaken, and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a question of time.

Character | Civilization | Consciousness | Inhumanity | Man | Object | Question | Time |

Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

Lessons of wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought in to the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions.

Character | Heart | Power | Story | Wisdom |

Tantra Tattva

In the root divine Wisdom is all-Brahman; in the stem she is an all-Illusion; in the flower she is all-World; and in the fruit, all-Liberation.

Character | Illusion | Wisdom | World |

Jeremy Taylor

It is a great point of wisdom to hide ignorance, as to discover knowledge. To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

Character | Ignorance | Knowledge | Learning | Wisdom |

Ludwig Tieck, fully Johann Ludwig Tieck

He who considers himself a paragon of wisdom is sure to commit some superlatively stupid act.

Character | Wisdom |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him!

Beauty | Character | Excellence | Hate | Life | Life | Man | Pain | Passion | Pleasure | Valor | Valor | Wisdom | Youth |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

There is no readier way for a man to bring his own worth into question than by endeavoring to detract from the worth of other men.

Character | Man | Men | Question | Worth |

Robert Southey

A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge as stubborn temper to happiness.

Character | Knowledge | Little | Mind | Temper | Wisdom |

H. W. Andrews

While an open mind is priceless, it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man unfit for a position of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where more and more of your decisions will be right. After all, it is better to be right 51 percent of the time and get something done, than it is to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision.

Action | Better | Consideration | Courage | Decision | Experience | Failure | Fear | Habit | Judgment | Man | Mind | Nothing | Position | Question | Responsibility | Right | Time | Will | Wisdom | Failure |

Shmuel Tzvi of Alexander, fully Admor Shmuel Tzvi Dantziger from Alexander, aka Samuel Alexander

If a person is indecisive about which of two courses of action to take, the question to ask himself is: “Which choice will bring more honor to the Almighty?” The reply to this question is the path to choose.

Action | Character | Choice | Honor | Question | Will |

Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe

You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.

Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |

Hotzoas Chochmah Umassar

The wise man knows his wisdom is limited, but the fool thinks he knows everything.

Character | Man | Wisdom | Wise |

Apocrypha NULL

The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath little business shall become wise.

Business | Leisure | Little | Man | Opportunity | Wisdom | Wise | Business |