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

Joseph Raz

The rule of law is essentially a negative value. The law inevitably creates a great danger of arbitrary power - the rule of law is designed to minimize the danger created by the law itself. Similarly, the law may be unstable, obscure, retrospective, etc., and thus infringe people’s freedom and dignity. The rule of law is designed to prevent his danger as well. Thus the rule of law is a negative virtue in two senses: conformity to it does not cause good except through avoiding evil and the evil which is avoided is evil which could only have been caused by the law itself.

Cause | Character | Conformity | Danger | Dignity | Evil | Freedom | Good | Law | People | Power | Rule | Virtue | Virtue | Danger |

James R. Quirk

The value of silence in art is its stimulation to the imagination.

Art | Character | Imagination | Silence | Art | Value |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.

Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

Every man stamps his value on himself. The price we challenge for ourselves is given us by others. Man is made great or little by his own will.

Challenge | Character | Little | Man | Price | Will | Value |

Samuel Smiles

Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.

Character | Duty | Life | Life | Little | Value |

Moshe Schwab

When we pray, we should feel the seriousness of speaking directly to the Almighty. The concept of seriousness should not be mistaken for sadness since sadness is a transgression. Seriousness should stem from the true joy of fulfilling a mitzvah [biblical law or good deed], the joy of having the merit to pray to the Almighty.

Character | Good | Joy | Law | Merit | Sadness |

Arthur Stainback, fully Arthur House Stainback

The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands.

Character | Compassion | Individual | Value |

Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford

Money has little value to its possessor unless it also has value to others.

Character | Little | Money | Value |

William Graham Sumner

Socialists are filled with the enthusiasm of equality... Equality of possession or of rights and equality before the law are diametrically opposed to each other. The object of equality before the law is to make the state entirely neutral.

Character | Enthusiasm | Equality | Law | Object | Rights |

John Hay Allison

Truth is the disciple of the ascetic, the quest of the mystic, the faith of the simple, the ransom of the weak, the standard of the righteous, the doctrine of the meek, and the challenge of Nature. Together, all these constitute the Law of the Universe.

Challenge | Doctrine | Faith | Law | Nature | Truth | Universe | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

This is a property of the rational soul, love of one’s neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice.

Justice | Law | Love | Modesty | Nothing | Property | Reason | Right | Soul | Truth | Wisdom | Value |

Carl William Ackerman

Facts, when combined with ideas, constitute the greatest force in the world. They are greater than armaments, greater than finance, greater than science, business and law because they constitute the common denominator of all of them.

Business | Force | Ideas | Law | Science | Wisdom | World | Business |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I often marvel how it is that though each man loves himself beyond all else, he should yet value his own opinion of himself less than that of others.

Man | Opinion | Wisdom | Value |

Caleb Afendopolo

He never taught any law or practice contrary to the Written Law. Only after his death... many of his disciples introduced practices and doctrines altogether foreign to him, removing thereby the cornerstone of the Law while winning the multitudes.

Death | Law | Practice | Wisdom | Winning |

Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

Duty | Law | Liberty | Life | Life | Property | Right | Rights | Wisdom |