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

Kenneth Eldon Bailey

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.

Advice | Prosperity | Wisdom |

William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

Seven national crimes: 1. I don't think. 2. I don't know. 3. I don't care. 4. I am too busy. 5. I "leave well enough alone." 6. I have no time to read and find out. 7. I am not interested.

Care | Enough | Time | Wisdom |

Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason.

Faith | Man | Reason | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Wise |

Phillips Brooks

Let us give thanks to God upon Thanksgiving Day. Nature is beautiful and fellowmen are dear, and duty is close beside us, and God is over us and in us. We want to trust Him with a fuller trust, and so at last to come to that high life where we shall be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let our request be made known unto God”; for that, and that alone, is peace.

Day | Duty | God | Life | Life | Nature | Nothing | Peace | Prayer | Supplication | Trust | Wisdom | God |

William Cullen Bryant

Much has been said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.

Action | Age | Danger | Difficulty | Mankind | Old age | Power | Strength | Time | Wisdom | Wise | Old |

William Cullen Bryant

War, like other situations of danger and of change, calls for the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of man.

Change | Danger | Glory | Man | Qualities | War | Wisdom | Danger |

Henry H. Buckley

Mistakes are costly and somebody must pay. The time to correct a mistake is before a mistake is made. The causes of mistakes are first, "I didn't know"; second, "I didn't think"; third, "I didn't care."

Care | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

"Know thyself," said the old philosopher, "improve thyself," saith the new. Our great object in time is not to waste our passions and gifts on the things external that we must leave behind, but that we cultivate within us all that we can carry into the eternal progress beyond.

Eternal | Know thyself | Object | Progress | Time | Waste | Wisdom | Old |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow time enough to consider it when it becomes today.

Body | Day | Enough | Ideas | Mind | Time | Wisdom |

Karl Bühler, fully Karl Ludwig Bühler

By the time the child can draw more that scribble, by the age of four or five years, an already well-formed body of conceptual knowledge formulated in language dominates his memory and controls his graphic work. Drawings are graphic accounts of essentially verbal processes. As an essentially verbal education gains control, the child abandons his graphic efforts and relies almost entirely on words. Language has first spoilt drawing and then swallowed it up completely.

Age | Body | Control | Education | Knowledge | Language | Memory | Time | Wisdom | Words | Work | Child |

Francis Scott Bradford

Man, though chained to earth, looks across time and space toward an unknown perfection which he may never reach but will forever seek.

Earth | Looks | Man | Perfection | Space | Time | Will | Wisdom |

Catherine Bowen, née Catherine Shober Drinker

Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness.

Time | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus; it move stones and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes not victories without it.

Enthusiasm | Genius | Nothing | Sincerity | Truth | Wisdom |

Georg Brandes, fully Georg Morris Cohen Brandes

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.

Humanity | Inheritance | Time | Truth | Wisdom |

Brown v. Board of Education NULL

Today education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

Awakening | Citizenship | Education | Good | Important | Life | Life | Opportunity | Public | Right | Service | Society | Training | Wisdom | Child |

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

Providence is the very divine reason which arranges all things, and rests with the supreme disposer of all; while fate is that ordering which is a part of all changeable things, and by means of which Providence binds all things together in their own order. Providence embraces all things equally, however different they may be, even however infinite: when they are assigned to their own places, forms, and times, Fate sets them in an orderly motion; so that this development of the temporal order, unified in the intelligence of the mind of God, is Providence. The working of this unified development in time is called Fate. These are different, but the one hangs upon the other. For this order, which is ruled by Fate, emanates from the directness of Providence.

Fate | God | Intelligence | Means | Mind | Order | Providence | Reason | Time | Wisdom | Fate |

John Christian Bovee

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered. The Chinese say, "The glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time you fall."

Character | Error | Glory | Judgment | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |