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

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God.

Character | God | Silence | Wisdom |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.

Appearance | Character | Dignity | Intelligence | Perseverance | Silence | Wisdom |

Alexander Maclaren

A man who has not learned to say “no” - who is not resolved that he will take God’s way in spite of every dog that can bark at him, in spite of every silvery voice that can woo him aside - will be a weak and wretched man till he dies.

Character | God | Man | Will |

Robert Nathan

True sorrow makes a silence in the heart.

Character | Heart | Silence | Sorrow |

Thomas Merton

The contemplative life has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and dare to advance without fear into the solitude of your own heart... you will truly recover the light and capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanation because it is too close to be explained.

Capacity | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Nothing | Silence | Solitude | Will | Words | Understand |

Jacques Maritain

The sole philosophy open to those who doubt the possibility of truth is absolute silence - even mental.

Absolute | Character | Doubt | Philosophy | Silence | Truth |

William Penn

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

Body | Character | Mind | Rest | Silence | Spirit |

Max Picard

Silence is man's centre... Today silence is malfunctioning noise.

Character | Man | Noise | Silence | Wisdom |

Grady Poulard

The measure of a man is not determined by his show of outward strength or the volume of his voice or the thunder of his action. It is to be seen rather in terms of the strength of his inner self in terms of the nature and depth of his commitments the sincerity of his purpose and his willingness to continue "growing up."

Action | Character | Man | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Sincerity | Strength |

Publius Syrus

Meet an accusation with silence and you make it sharper.

Character | Silence |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Conscience is the voice of the soul.

Character | Conscience | Soul |

James R. Quirk

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

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

Roy L. Smith, aka Mr. Methodist

As a man grows older, he values the voice of experience more and the voice of prophecy less. He finds more of life's wealth in the common pleasures - home, health, children. He thinks more about worth of men and less about their wealth. He boasts less and boosts more. He hurries less, and usually makes more progress. He esteems the friendship of God a little higher.

Character | Children | Experience | God | Health | Life | Life | Little | Man | Men | Progress | Prophecy | Wealth | Worth | Friendship | God |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul.

Character | Soul | Will |

Shimon HaTzaddik

For his entire life he was in the company of wise men and Of all the things beneficial to one’s body, silence is the best. [paraphrase]

Body | Character | Life | Life | Men | Silence | Wise |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

Each successive generation plunges into the abyss of passion, without the slightest regard to the fatal effects which such conduct has produced upon their predecessors; and lament, when too late, the rashness with which they slighted the advice of experience, and stifled the voice of reason.

Advice | Character | Conduct | Experience | Passion | Rashness | Reason | Regard |