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 B. Newcomb

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.

Beginning | Character | Fear | Life | Life |

George E. Mathieu

A man may lose his strength; he may lose his money; he may lose every earthly thing which he possesses. Yet he may still attain and control his happiness if it stems from service to others.

Character | Control | Man | Money | Service | Strength | Happiness |

Thomas Merton

The contemplative life has nothing to tell you except to reassure you and say that if you dare to penetrate your own silence and dare to advance without fear into the solitude of your own heart... you will truly recover the light and capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanation because it is too close to be explained.

Capacity | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Nothing | Silence | Solitude | Will | Words | Understand |

John F. Milburn

Fear is like fire: If controlled it will help you; if uncontrolled, it will rise up and destroy you. Men's actions depend a great deal upon fear. We do things either because we enjoy doing them or because we are afraid not to do them. This sort of fear has not relation to physical or moral courage. It is inspired by the knowledge that we are not adequately prepared to face the future and the events it may bring - poverty perhaps, or injury, or death.

Character | Courage | Death | Destroy | Events | Fear | Future | Knowledge | Men | Poverty | Will | Afraid |

Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL

I maintain, in truth, that with a smile we should instruct our youth, be very gentle when we have to blame, and not to put them in fear of virtue's name.

Blame | Character | Fear | Smile | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Youth |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety.

Character | Fear | Man | Wants |

John Homer Miller

In a life well lived, each succeeding day becomes better than the last. Each day, each year, each experience does not stand alone; it cannot be separated from what has happened before or what may happen after. Yesterday determines today, and today helps determine tomorrow.

Better | Character | Day | Experience | Life | Life | Tomorrow |

Maurice Nicoll

Death is a fact in our natural reality - that is, in our sense-given experience of life - and as long as we cannot understand that we apprehend though the senses only a minute part of total existence and reality, we cannot escape from the violent effect of its suggestion.

Character | Death | Existence | Experience | Life | Life | Reality | Sense | Understand |

José Joaquín de Olmedo, fully José Joaquín de Olmedo y Maruri

They set the slave free, striking off his chains. Then he was as much of a slave as ever. He was still chained to servility. He was still manacled to indolence and sloth, he was still bound by fear and superstition, by ignorance suspicion and savagery. His slavery was not in the chains, but in himself. They can only set free men free. And there is no need of that. Free men set themselves free.

Character | Fear | Ignorance | Indolence | Men | Need | Slavery | Sloth | Superstition | Suspicion |

Martha Pingel

As nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm, so happiness or peace of mind cannot be achieved without sharing oneself with others, serving those in need, whether materially or spiritually.

Character | Enthusiasm | Mind | Need | Nothing | Peace | Happiness |

Anna Maria Porter

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures.

Character | Habit | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness | Thought |

Jane Porter

It depends on education to open the gates which lead to virtue or to vice, to happiness or to misery.

Character | Education | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |

James Northcote

Half the things that people do not succeed in, are through fear of making the attempt.

Character | Fear | People |

José Joaquín de Olmedo, fully José Joaquín de Olmedo y Maruri

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.

Character | Man | Wise | Happiness |

Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

Most men are afraid of a bad name, but few fear their consciences.

Character | Fear | Men | Afraid |