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

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I would rather be kicked with a foot than be overcome by a loud voice speaking cruel words.

Character | Wisdom | Words |

Jean de La Bruyère

We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much; a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows, but which all the world does not practice.

Character | Little | Practice | World |

Jean de La Bruyère

We rarely repent of speaking little, but often of speaking too much.

Character | Little |

Madame Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe Guyon

There are three kinds of silence. Silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence, or rest from desires and passions is still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. But the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper reputation and for silence in other respects.

Better | Character | Evil | Good | Reputation | Rest | Silence | Spirit | Words |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Those who speak always and those who never speak are equally unfit for friendship. A good proportion of the talent of listening and speaking is the base of social virtues.

Character | Good | Listening | Talent |

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 |

Norman O. Brown, fully Norman Oliver Brown

What is always speaking silently is the body.

Body | Wisdom |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it round. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.

Better | Capacity | Enemy | Friend | Wisdom | Trouble |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

We are not speaking of the perfection of life, forces, and forms as increasing or decreasing according to the degrees of extension or continuity, because these degrees are generally known; but as ascending or descending according to the degrees of ascent, or discrete (discontinuous) degrees, can be but little known from things visible in the natural world.

Life | Life | Little | Perfection | Wisdom | World |

Richard Grant White

Unconsciousness is one of the most important conditions of a good style in speaking or in writing.

Good | Important | Style | Unconsciousness | Wisdom | Writing |

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Love is in the air that I breathe, like oxygen. When I lack it, I feel atrophied, asphyxiated. When I have it, I feel I am growing. And so this growth is linked to others, or to a collective other. If I realize that I do not love you, my faith diminishes, and I breathe less and less of the oxygen of life. When I feel linked to you,in communion with you, there is a current of love that passes between us, and the intensity can multiply. And the more this love grows, the more the faith becomes luminous, the more I feel linked to the collective other. I am speaking of God.

Faith | God | Growth | Life | Life | Love |

Albert Einstein

Science has brought this danger, but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men. We will not change the hearts of other men by mechanisms, but by changing our hearts and speaking bravely… When we are clear in heart and mind – only then shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts the world.

Change | Courage | Danger | Fear | Heart | Men | Mind | Science | Will | World |

Sidney Greenberg

Greatness is a matter not of size but of quality, and it is within the reach of every one of us. Greatness lies in the faithful performance of whatever duties life places upon us and in the generous performance of the small acts of kindness that God has made possible for us. There is greatness in patient endurance; in unyielding loyalty to a goal; in resistance to the temptation to betray the best we know; in speaking up for the truth when it is assailed; in steadfast adherence to vows given and promises made. God does not ask us to do extraordinary things. He asks us to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Endurance | God | Greatness | Kindness | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Size | Temptation | Truth | Vows | God | Temptation |

Sidney Greenberg

Living life at its best means keeping on speaking terms with my conscience, to do nothing to outrage it or to inflict pain upon it. When my acts do violence to my moral or ethical standards, I sustain a loss for which no pleasure or material gain can compensate me, for I shrink in moral stature. When I keep my friendship with the best in me, I achieve a serenity which cloaks life with gentle beauty.

Beauty | Conscience | Life | Life | Means | Nothing | Pain | Pleasure | Serenity | Friendship | Loss |