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

Auguste-Marseille Barthélemy

The absurd man is he who never changes.

Absurd | Character | Man |

Max Beerbohm, fully Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm

To say that a man is vain simply means that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself.

Character | Man | Means | People |

Yehezkel Abramsky, aka Reb Chatzkel Abramsky

View each day as a page in a book of your autobiography.

Character | Day |

Ahikar or Ahiqar NULL

The beauty of man is in his faithfulness, and his hatefulness is the lying of his lips.

Beauty | Character | Lying | Man | Beauty |

Ahikar or Ahiqar NULL

A man knows not what is in the heart of his fellow.

Character | Heart | Man | Wisdom |

Antisthenes NULL

A wise man will always be contented with his condition, and will live rather according to his precepts of virtue, than according to the customs of his country.

Character | Man | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wise |

Isaac Barrow

As a stick, when once it is dry and stiff you may break it, but you can never bend it into a straighter posture; so doth the man become incorrigible who is settled and stiffened into vice.

Character | Man |

Stephen Vincent Benét

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

Character | Day | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Pope Agapet II, aka Pope Agapetus II NULL

When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults.

Character | Day | Imitation | Men | Victim |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

The greatest manifestation of your love for the Almighty can be expressed on your day of death. Before your death, you might be thinking about how you have not fulfilled all of your wishes and plans. In the moments before your death you might have complaints against the Almighty, or you might fatalistically accept your death by saying, What can be done? My body is giving in to the laws of nature. The doctors have given up hope.” Both of these attitudes are wrong You now face the greatest challenge of your life. You have the potential to submit yourself to the will of the Almighty with love. This level takes preparation. If a person has not mastered control of his thoughts, he is likely to waste his last moments thinking of petty resentments and desires. Frequently confusion and fear of death swallow up every other thought unless one has prepared for that moment.

Body | Challenge | Character | Control | Day | Death | Fear | Giving | Hope | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Thinking | Thought | Waste | Will | Wishes | Wrong | Thought |

Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Abu Ismaïl Abdullah ibn Abi-Mansour Mohammad or Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat

The company of a good man is the light of the soul, of an evil man the poison of life.

Character | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Light | Man | Soul |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know.

Character | Earth | Good | Wisdom |

Saul Bellow

A man is only as good as what he loves.

Character | Good | Man |

Thomas Adams

He who reforms himself, has done much toward reforming others; and one reason why the world is not reformed, is, because each would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself doing it.

Beginning | Character | Reason | World |