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

Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.

Control | Humility | Life | Life |

Rashi, born Shlomo ben Yitzchok, aka Salomon Isaacides, Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki NULL

We learn from here the humility of the Holy One, Blessed is He. Since man is in the likeness of the angels, and they would be jealous of him, for this reason, He consulted them.

Humility | Man | Blessed | Learn |

Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.

Humility | Judgment | Wrong |

Jim Wallis

But when one believes that you've been appointed by God for a particular mission in history, you have to be very careful about that, how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that Where is the humility in that

God | Humility | Mission | God |

Richard Dawkins

Scientists are sometimes suspected of arrogance. Carl Sagan commends to us by contrast the humility of the Roman Catholic Church which, as early as 1992, was ready to grant a pardon to Galileo and admit publicly that the Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. We must hope that this outspoken magnanimity will not cause any offence or hurt to the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdel-Aziz Ibn Baaz who, according to Sagan, in 1993 issued an edict, or fatwa, declaring that the world is flat. Anyone of the round persuasion does not believe in God and should be punished. Arrogance? Scientists are amateurs in arrogance.

Authority | Cause | Church | Contrast | Earth | God | Hope | Humility | Magnanimity | Pardon | Persuasion | Will | World | God |

Richard Carlson

The first step to becoming a more peaceful person is to have the humility to admit that, in most cases, you're creating your own emergencies. Life will usually go on if things don't go according to plan. It's helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, Life isn't an emergency.

Humility | Life | Life | Will |

Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect.

Humility |

Richard Feynman, fully Richard Phillips Feynman

The basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual... the humility of the spirit.

Action | Brotherhood | Humility | Value |

Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans

Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction.

Flexibility | Giving | Humility | Marriage | Need | Respect | Sense | Understanding | Wise | Flexibility | Respect |

Richard Sibbes (or Sibbs)

It is much to be desired that there were that love in all men to teach what they know, and that humility in others to be instructed in what they know not. God humbles sometimes great persons to learn of others that are meaner, and it is our duty to embrace the truth whoever brings it, and oftentimes ordinary persons are instruments of knowledge and comfort to many that are greater than themselves

Comfort | Duty | God | Humility | Knowledge | Love | Men | Teach | Truth | God | Learn |

Samuel Tilden, fully Samuel Jones Tilden

I Still Trust in The People. [engraved on his tombstone]

Accomplishment | Humility | Organization | Spirit | Strength | Success | Unity | Leadership |

Anthony Kenny, fully Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny

Internalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject.

Control | Defects | Humility | Inclination | Judgment | Passion | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |

Rudolf Otto

The God of the New Testament is not less holy that the God of the Old Testament, but more holy. The interval between the creature and Him is not diminished but made absolute; the unworthiness of the profane in contrast to Him is not extenuated but enhanced. That God none the less admits access to Himself and intimacy with Himself is not a mere matter of course; it is a grace beyond our power to apprehend, a prodigious paradox.

Humility | Mind | Mystery | Soul |

Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL

The first step of humility is to obey. This will be natural to those who love Christ above all. Because of the holy service they have promised or because of fear of hell, they will carry out the abbot's order as quickly as if the command came from God. This will be accepted by God only if it is done without making faces or slowly or half-hearted. God sees his heart. The monk will receive no prize for service of this kind. Just the opposite, he will get punished, unless he changes for the better and makes things right.

Humility |

Saint Benedict of Nursia NULL

The prophet shows that, for the sake of silence, we are to abstain even from good talk. If this be so, how much more needful is it that we refrain from evil words, on account of the penalty of the sin!

Better | Fear | God | Humility | Love | Order | Receive | Service | Will | God |

Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker

Americans like fat books and thin women.

Boasting | Humility |

Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL

Just as the root feeds the tree, so humility feeds the soul. The spirit of humility is sweeter than honey, and whoever is fed by this sweetness produces fruit.

Chastity | Heart | Humility |

Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL

Solicitude for material things distracts the soul and divides it. The devil seizes the divided soul and drags it to hell.

Humility | Spirit |

Saint Athanasius, aka Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St. Athanasius the Confessor, St. Athanasius the Apostolic NULL

A man's personality actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly, because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly, no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body to be by Him actuated and enlightened.

Humility | Spirit |