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

Youssou N’Dour

The meaning of life is to be found in our surroundings and in our relationships... Life is meaningful when we respect the best of tradition while still loving innovation... Life is fulfilling when we marry pride with tolerance, when our deeds and our words are nourished by hope and by realism, when the wisdom of the ages catches the passionate eye of youth. Life on this earth in our time is, above all, a parade of interdependent peoples, interdependent ideas, interdependent solutions. We are all artists of the possible - and dreamers of that which is just now beyond our reach, but may not be tomorrow.

Deeds | Earth | Hope | Ideas | Innovation | Interdependent | Life | Life | Meaning | Pride | Respect | Time | Tomorrow | Tradition | Wisdom | Words | Youth | Deeds | Respect |

Douglas Meador

A way to weigh words is to keep them in the heart until they are gentle and until the lips will speak them softly.

Heart | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Margaret Percival

Night steals on; and the day takes its farewell, like the words of a departing friend, or the last tone of hallowed music in a minister’s aisles, heard when it floats along the shade of elms; in the still place of graves.

Day | Friend | Music | Wisdom | Words |

Francis Quarles

Silence is the highest wisdom of a fool as speech is the greatest trial of a wise man. If thou wouldst be known as wise, let thy words show thee so; if thou doubt thy words, let thy silence feign thee so. It is not a greater point of wisdom to discover knowledge than to hide ignorance.

Doubt | Ignorance | Knowledge | Man | Silence | Speech | Wisdom | Wise | Words | Trial |

Francis Quarles

If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confine thee. He that thinks he can never speak enough, may easily speak too much. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.

Enough | Wisdom | Words |

Claude A. Ries

A saintly colored woman who was greatly loved in her community was asked how she made and kept so many friends. She replied, "I stop and taste my words before I let them pass my teeth."

Taste | Wisdom | Woman | Words |

Frederic Saunders

Kind words are benedictions. They are not only instruments of power, but of benevolence and courtesy; blessings both to the speaker and hearer of them.

Benevolence | Blessings | Courtesy | Power | Wisdom | Words |

Samuel Smiles

There are words that strike even harder than blows.

Wisdom | Words |

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Commonly called Alfred Lord Tennyson

O guard thy roving thoughts with jealous care, for speech is but the dialplate of thought; and every fool reads plainly in thy words what is the hour of thy thought.

Care | Speech | Thought | Wisdom | Words |

Logan Pearsall Smith

Two weeks before his death, a friend asked him half-jokingly if he had discovered any meaning in life. 'Yes,' he replied, ' there is a meaning, at least for me, there is one thing that matters - to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.'

Death | Friend | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Wisdom | Words |

John Randolph Stidman

It is the little things in life that are the sublime things. It is the minor parts of the great drama which make up the whole. The handclasp, the smile, the words of confidence or encouragement; these are the strength and bulwark of society, business, religion - and home life. Without them, there would be no trust; without trust, our world would collapse.

Business | Confidence | Life | Life | Little | Religion | Smile | Society | Strength | Trust | Wisdom | Words | World |

Terence, full Latin name Publius Terentius Afer NULL

It becomes a wise man to try words before arms.

Man | Wisdom | Wise | Words |

Lyall Watson

There are around half a million words in the English language, but a recent statistical study of telephone speech discovered that 96 percent of all conversation over the wires consists of just 737 words.

Conversation | Language | Speech | Study | Wisdom | Words |

Richard Whately

It is quite possible, and not uncommon, to read most laboriously, even so as to get by heart the words of a book, without really studying it at all - that is, without employing the thoughts on the subject.

Heart | Wisdom | Words |