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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking; always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

Character | Day | Duty | Right | Thinking |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

The simplest explanation is not always the right one, truth is very often not simple.

Character | Right | Truth |

Henry Ford

We now know that anything which is economically right is also morally right; there can be no conflict between good economics and good morals.

Character | Economics | Good | Right | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Most people work for the greater part of their time for a mere living; and the little freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every means of getting rid of it.

Character | Freedom | Little | Means | People | Time | Troubles | Work |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

He who seizes on the moment, he is the right man.

Character | Man | Right |

Henry Fielding

As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.

Cause | Character | Man | Matrimony | Means | Right | Surrender | Trifles | Wife | Wise |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

What we give out as scientific truth is only the product of our own needs and desires, as they are formulated under varying external conditions; that is to say, it is illusion once more. Ultimately we find only what we need to find, and see only what we desire to see. We can do nothing else. And since the criterion of truth, correspondence with an external world, disappears, it is absolutely immaterial what views we accept. All of them are equally true and false. And no one has a right to accuse any one else of error.

Character | Desire | Error | Illusion | Need | Nothing | Right | Truth | World |

Henry George

Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action and when there is correct thought, right action will follow.

Action | Character | Right | Thought | Will | Wisdom |

John Ford

Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear; the sweetest freedom is an honest heart.

Character | Fear | Freedom | Heart |

Felix Frankfurter

Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.

Aims | Candor | Character | Confidence | Ends | Fear | Freedom | Life | Life | Men | Security | Self | Society | Society |

Robert Hall

All attempts to urge men forward, even in the right path, beyond the measure of their light, are impracticable; and unlawful, if they were practicable; augment their light, conciliate their affections, and they will follow of their own accord.

Character | Light | Men | Right | Will |

Robert Hall

Corrupt as men are, they are yet so much the creatures of reflection, and so strongly addicted to sentiments of right and wrong, that their attachment to a public cause can rarely be secured, or their animosity be kept alive, unless their understandings are engaged by some appearance of truth and rectitude.

Appearance | Cause | Character | Men | Public | Reflection | Right | Truth | Wrong |

Richard M. Hare, fully Richard Mervyn Hare

It is, most fundamentally, because moral judgments are universablizable that we can speak of moral thought as rational (to universalize is to give the reason); and their prescriptivity is very intimately connected with our freedom to form our own moral opinions (only those free to think and act need a prescriptive language).

Character | Freedom | Language | Need | Reason | Thought | Think | Thought |

Joseph Jones "J.J." Reynolds

Remember that when you're in the right you can afford to keep your temper and that when you're in the wrong you can't afford to lose it.

Character | Right | Temper | Wrong |

Thomas Hobbes

To this war of every man, against every man, this is also consequent that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice, are none of the faculties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his sense, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thing distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.

Body | Character | Force | Fraud | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Law | Man | Men | Mind | Nothing | Power | Qualities | Right | Sense | Society | Solitude | War | World | Wrong |

Robert Hall

Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little - diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God’s mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness.

Blessings | Character | Ends | Faith | God | Greatness | Little | Looks | Right | Time | Wrong | Infidelity |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

It is much easier to think right without doing right, than to do right without thinking right. Just thoughts may, and often do, fail of producing just deeds; but just deeds are sure to get just thoughts. The clearest understanding can do little in purifying an impure heart, the strongest little in straightening a crooked one. You cannot reason or talk an Augean stable into cleanliness. A single day's work would make more progress in such a task than a century's words.

Character | Cleanliness | Day | Deeds | Heart | Little | Progress | Reason | Right | Thinking | Understanding | Words | Work | Deeds | Think |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker is not really interested in self-improvement. He is only interested in gaining approval from others. Hence, he will disregard any fault he has if he knows that others will not notice it. On the other hand, a person who is able to forego his honor is able to focus on truth. His only thought is to do the right thing and he is willing to sacrifice his honor for his principles. Such a person will eventually receive honor, for he will constantly work on improving himself.

Character | Fault | Focus | Honor | Improvement | Principles | Receive | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-improvement | Thought | Truth | Will | Work | Approval | Fault | Thought |

William James

We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |