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

Plotinus NULL

External objects present us only with appearances.

Character | Present |

Abbé Raynal

The world is governed by three things - wisdom, authority, and appearance. Wisdom for thoughtful people, authority for rough people, and appearances for the great mass of superficial people who can look only at the outside.

Appearance | Authority | Character | People | Wisdom | World |

Publius Syrus

The wickedness of the few is the calamity of the many.

Calamity | Character | Wickedness | Calamity |

John Charles Salak

Let us think only of spending the present day well. then when tomorrow shall have come, it will be called today, and then we will think about it.

Character | Day | Present | Tomorrow | Will | Think |

Moshe Rosenstein, fully Moshe ben Chaim Rosenstein

A person who appreciates that the Almighty created everything in the world for his benefit is aware of the multitude of good things he has in the world. With this appreciation, no one considers himself poor in comparison to anyone else just because the other person has a little more than him. Even the poorest person in the world has many things for which to be thankful. Everyone has the ability to be in a state of happiness. Do not allow another person’s having more than you rob you of your happiness.

Ability | Appreciation | Character | Good | Little | World |

Francis Quarles

In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.

Art | Character | Evil | Fear | Man | Punishment | Wickedness | Witness | Art |

Francis Quarles

In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself. Another is but one witness against thee; thou art a thousand. Another thou mayst avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.

Art | Character | Evil | Fear | Man | Punishment | Wickedness | Witness | Art |

H. F. Rall, fully Harris Franklin

Freedom means mastery of your world. Fear and greed are common sources of bondage. We are afraid, beset by anxiety. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We seem so helpless over against the forces that move now without apparent thought for men. And our inner freedom is destroyed by greed. We think that if we only had enough goods we should be free, happy, without care. And so there comes the lust for money, and slavery to the world of things. The world can enslave; it can never make us free.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Care | Character | Enough | Fear | Freedom | Greed | Happy | Lust | Means | Men | Money | Slavery | Thought | Tomorrow | Will | World | Think | Thought |

Francis Quarles

The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite’s dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

Character | Heart | World |

Charles A. Reich

To start from self does not mean to be selfish. It means to start from premises based on human life and the rest of nature, rather than premises that are the artificial products of the Corporate State, such as power or status. It is not an ‘ego trip’ but a radical subjectivity designed to find genuine values in a world whose official values are false and distorted. It is not egocentricity, but honesty, wholeness, genuineness in all things. It starts from self because human life is found as individual units, not as corporations and institutions; its intent is to start from life.

Character | Ego | Honesty | Individual | Life | Life | Means | Nature | Power | Rest | Self | Wholeness | World |

Madame Roland, Jeanne Manon Philon, born Marie-Jeanne Phlipon

What indulgence does the world extend to those evil-speakers who, under the mask of friendship, stab indiscriminately with the keen, though rusty blade of slander!

Character | Evil | Indulgence | Slander | World |

Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar

All weaknesses are just fabrications of mind. If I am not happy with myself, how can you make me happy? It takes time to see that my unhappiness stems from myself and not from you. We love to blame others as the source of our unhappiness because that is how we feel good about ourselves. But when we go deeper, we realize that no one in the whole world can make us happy or unhappy. It depends on our own integrity.

Blame | Character | Good | Happy | Integrity | Love | Mind | Time | Unhappiness | World |