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

Charles W. Eliot

Nobody has any right to find life uninteresting or unrewarded who sees within the sphere of his own activity a wrong he can help to remedy, or within himself an evil he can hope to overcome.

Evil | Hope | Life | Life | Right | Wisdom | Wrong |

Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"

The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.

Evil | Good | Ignorance | Knowledge | Wisdom |

Euripedes NULL

What can we take on trust in this uncertain life? Happiness, greatness, pride - nothing is secure, nothing keeps.

Greatness | Life | Life | Nothing | Pride | Trust | Wisdom |

Ann Faraday

Dreams reflect not only actual happenings, but also a whole host of thoughts and feelings that passed us by during the day because we were too busy or unwilling to catch them. [Besides expressing] the thoughts of our heart... powerful revealers of hidden talents, buried beauty, and unsuspected creative energy. They urge us to recognize that we are actually a lot nicer than we have hitherto realized.

Beauty | Day | Dreams | Energy | Feelings | Heart | Wisdom |

Owen Feltham

Discontent is like ink poured into water, which fills the whole fountain full of blackness. It casts over the mind, and renders it more occupied about the evil which disquiets than about the means of removing it.

Discontent | Evil | Means | Mind | Wisdom |

William Ewart Gladstone

Vanity and pride sustain so close an alliance as to be often mistaken for each other.

Pride | Wisdom |

Friedrich Fröbel, fully Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel

Play is the highest level of child development. It is the spontaneous expression of thought and feeling. It is the purest creation of the child's mind as it is also a pattern and copy of the natural life hidden in man and in all things.

Life | Life | Man | Mind | Play | Thought | Wisdom | Child | Thought |

John Hall

Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character goes forward. They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity.

Character | Charity | Conversation | Enough | Evil | Family | Gentleness | God | Good | Man | Mission | Motives | Wisdom | Woman | God |

Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm

The blind fanaticism of one foolish honest man may cause more evil than the united efforts of twenty rogues.

Cause | Evil | Fanaticism | Man | Wisdom |

Michael Harner

The shaman typically experiences ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him... He is a self-reliant explorer of the endless mansions of a magnificent hidden universe. Finally, he brings back his discoveries to build his knowledge and help others.

Awe | Joy | Knowledge | Self | Universe | Wisdom |

Robert Greene

Nothing is evil that is necessary.

Evil | Nothing | Wisdom |

Josiah Johnson "J." Hawes

He that cannot decidedly say, "No," when tempted to evil, is on the highway to ruin. He loses the respect even of those who would tempt him, and becomes but the pliant tool and victim of their evil designs.

Evil | Respect | Wisdom | Respect | Victim |

John Alexander Hammerton, fully Sir John Alexander Hammerton

One of the most melancholy things in the world is the enormous power for evil of the dead over things living. There is hardly a great painter or writer, or a man who had achieved greatness in any direction, whose name has not been used to repress rising genius.

Evil | Genius | Greatness | Man | Melancholy | Power | Wisdom | World |

Heinrich Heine

Matter never becomes evil except when it is forced to conspire in secret against the usurpations of spirit.

Evil | Spirit | Wisdom |

John Hall

There is evil enough in man, God knows; but it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible and fragrant with gentleness and charity.

Charity | Enough | Evil | Gentleness | God | Man | Mission | Wisdom | Woman | God |

Francesco Guicciardini

There is no evil in human affairs that has not some good mingled with it.

Evil | Good | Wisdom |

Hitopadesa or The Hitopadesa or Hitopadesha NULL

Amongst all things, knowledge is truly the best thing: from its not being liable ever to be stolen, from its not being purchasable, and from its being imperishable...Learning is superior to beauty; learning is better than hidden treasure; learning is a companion on a journey to a strange country; learning is strength inexhaustible.

Beauty | Better | Journey | Knowledge | Learning | Strength | Wisdom |