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

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.

Body | Character | Fame | Fortune | Judgment | Life | Life | Oblivion | Perception | Soul | Time |

Antoinette Du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières

No one is ever satisfied with his fortune or dissatisfied with his understanding.

Character | Fortune | Understanding |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Envy comes from focusing on the few moments of good fortune in the life of another person, while ignoring his years of misfortune.

Character | Envy | Fortune | Good | Life | Life | Misfortune |

Avraham Grodzinski

There are usually no benefits from becoming angry at others. Your anger does not help you and the subject of your anger usually pays less attention to what you are saying than if you would have said it tactfully and patiently. Becoming angry merely causes harm to your health and makes you feel miserable.

Anger | Attention | Character | Harm | Health |

Samson Raphael Hirsch

In general, one cannot judge the true extent of a person’s fortune by outward appearances. The little a righteous man has may be far better than the noisy abundance in which many lawless delight. The modest possessions of a righteous man make him much happier than the great fortunes of many evildoers about which so much ado is made in the world.

Abundance | Better | Character | Fortune | Little | Man | Possessions | World |

Victor Hugo

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

Character | Health | Soul | Wisdom |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

Men in excess of happiness or misery are equally inclined to severity. Witness conquerors and monks! It is mediocrity alone, and a mixture of prosperous and adverse fortune that inspire us with lenity and pity.

Character | Excess | Fortune | Mediocrity | Men | Pity | Witness | Happiness |

Cornelius Nepos

Every man's fortune is moulded by his character.

Character | Fortune | Man |

Periander, aka Periander The Great NULL

If fortune smiles, beware of being exalted; if fortune thunders, beware of being overwhelmed.

Character | Fortune |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

The health of the soul is to have its faculties - reason, high spirit, and desire - happily tempered, with reason in command, and reining in both the other two, like restive horses. The special name of this health is temperance.

Character | Desire | Health | Reason | Soul | Spirit |

Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

Life is what our character makes it. We fashion it, as a snail does its shell. A man can say: "I never made a fortune because it is not in my character to be rich."

Character | Fortune | Life | Life | Man |

Albert Schweitzer

Happiness! That's nothing more than good health and a poor memory.

Character | Good | Health | Memory | Nothing |

O. Carl Simonton

The more I can love everything - the trees, the land, the water, my fellow men, women, and children, and myself - the more health I am going to experience and the more of my real self I am going to be.

Character | Children | Experience | Health | Land | Love | Men | Self | Wisdom |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

To be rich in admiration and free from envy; to rejoice greatly in the good of others; to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence; these are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing. He who has such a treasury of riches, being happy and valiant himself, in his own nature, will enjoy the universe as if it were his own estate; and help the man to whom he lends a hand to enjoy it with him.

Absence | Admiration | Character | Envy | Fortune | Generosity | Good | Happy | Heart | Love | Man | Money | Nature | Nothing | Riches | Universe | Will |