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

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

Character | Will |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the reports of our sense-organs.

Character | Consciousness | Nature | Reality | Sense | World |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

It is only in beholding and loving God that we can learn forgetfulness of self, measure duly the nothingness which has dazzled us, and accustom ourselves thankfully to decrease beneath that great Majesty which absorbs all things. Love God and you will be humble; love God and you will throw off the love of self; love God and you will love all that He gives you to love for love of Him.

Character | Forgetfulness | God | Love | Self | Will | God | Learn |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

The only thing that brings a mother undiluted satisfaction is her relation to a son; it is quite the most complete relationship between human beings, and the one that is the most free from ambivalence. The mother can transfer to her son all the ambition which she has had to surpress in herself, and she can hope to get from him the satisfaction of all that has remained to her of her masculinity complex. Even a marriage is not firmly assured until the woman has succeeded in making her husband into her child and in acting the part of a mother towards him.

Ambition | Character | Hope | Husband | Marriage | Mother | Relationship | Woman | Ambition | Child |

Alberico Gentili

As a man thinks of himself, so will he be.

Character | Man | Will |

Owen Feltham

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.

Character | Man | Mind | Praise | Wise |

Owen Feltham

Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change is the way to perfect them. It gets the name of willfulness when it will not admit of a lawful change to the better. Therefore constancy without knowledge cannot be always good. In things ill it is not virtue, but an absolute vice.

Absolute | Better | Change | Character | Constancy | Good | Knowledge | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Henry Fielding

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others concerned with him have done evil! If a man has acted right, he has done well, though alone; if wrong, the sanction of all mankind will not justify him.

Character | Evil | Good | Justify | Man | Mankind | Right | Will | Wrong |

Willbur Fisk, also Wilbur Fisk

I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment will never be respected or successful in life.

Character | Individual | Life | Life | Will |

Benjamin Franklin

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, an scarcely in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. Remember this; they that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you over your knuckles.

Advice | Character | Conduct | Experience | Reason | Will | Learn |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Plunge boldly into the thick of life! each lives it, not to many is it known; and seize it where you will it is interesting.

Character | Life | Life | Will |

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 |

Benjamin Franklin

Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all thins to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep.

Character | Diligence | God | Good | Industry | Luck | Mother | God |

O. P. Gifford

Countless the various species of mankind; countless the shades which separate mind from mind.

Character | Mankind | Mind |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own.

Character | Nothing | Self | Will |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.

Care | Character | Eternity | Regret | Time | Will | Loss |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

Character | Education | Mind | Will |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

We settle things by a majority vote, and the psychological effect of doing that is to create the impression that the majority is probably right. Of course, on any fine issue the majority is sure to be wrong. Think of taking a majority vote on the best music. Jazz would win over Chopin. Or on the best novel. Many cheap scribblers would win over Tolstoy. And any day a prizefight will get a bigger crowd, larger gate receipts and wider newspaper publicity than any new revelation of goodness, truth or beauty could hope to achieve in a century.

Beauty | Character | Day | Hope | Impression | Majority | Music | Revelation | Right | Truth | Will | Wrong | Beauty | Think |