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

B. N. Mills

Dreamers and doers - the world, generally divides men into those two general classifications, but the world is often wrong. There are men who win the admiration and respect of their fellowmen. They are the men worth while. Dreaming is just another name for thinking, planning, devising - another way of saying that a man exercises his soul. A steadfast soul, holding steadily to a dream ideal, plus a sturdy will determined to succeed in any venture, can make any dream come true. Use your mind and your will. They work together for you beautifully if you'll only give them a chance.

Admiration | Chance | Character | Man | Men | Mind | Respect | Soul | Thinking | Will | Work | World | Worth | Wrong | Respect |

Theodore T. Munger

It is a sad thing to begin life with low conceptions of it. It may not be possible for a young man to measure life; but it is possible to say, I am resolved to put life to its noblest and best use.

Character | Life | Life | Man |

Gabriel Sénac de Meilhan

There is no such thing as absolute truth... People are less deceived by failing to see the truth than by failing to see its limits.

Absolute | Character | People | Truth |

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 |

Molière, pen name of Jean Baptiste Poquelin NULL

Things only have the value that we give them. [Things are only worth what you make them worth.]

Character | Worth | Value |

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

I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.

Character | Risk | Thinking | Worth |

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

What is then liberty? To be born is at once to be born in the world and to the world. The world is already constituted, but never completely. Under the first rapport, we are solicited, under the second we are open to an infinity of possibilities. But this analysis is still abstract, because we exist under these two relations at once. There is therefore never determinism and never absolute choice; I am never a thing and never naked consciousness.

Absolute | Abstract | Character | Choice | Consciousness | Liberty | Wisdom | World |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. We try all the ways that can lead us to it. When reason fails us, we use experience.. which is a weaker and less dignified means. But truth is so great a thing that we must not disdain any medium that will lead us to it.

Character | Desire | Disdain | Experience | Knowledge | Means | Reason | Truth | Will |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

We can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless.

Character | Esteem | Evil | Malice | Pity | Stupidity | Unhappiness | Think |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honor. Valor is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.

Character | Heart | Honor | Man | Soul | Strength | Valor | Valor | Will | Worth | Value |

Thomas Merton

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

Character | Think |

Maurice Nicoll

The time-man in us does not know now. He is always preparing something in the future, or busy with what happened in the past... All decisions that belong to the life in time, to success, to business, comfort, are about ‘tomorrow’. All decisions about the right thing to do, about how to act, are about tomorrow. It is only what is done in now that counts, and this is a decision always about oneself and with oneself, even though its effect may touch other people’s lives ‘tomorrow’. Now is spiritual... Spiritual values have nothing to do with time.

Business | Character | Comfort | Decision | Future | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Past | People | Right | Success | Time | Tomorrow |

Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn

The true worth of a soul is revealed as much by the motive it attributes to the actions of others as by its own deeds.

Character | Deeds | Soul | Worth |

Robert M. Pirsig

So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully, then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.

Character | Mind | Peace | Reflection | Right | Self | Serenity | Will | Work |

Posidonius, aka Posidonius of Rhodes or Posidonius of Apameia (meaning "of Poseidon") NULL

A single day in the life of a learned man is worth more than the lifetime of a fool.

Character | Day | Life | Life | Man | Worth |