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

Francis William Bourdillon

The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one; yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.

Character | Heart | Life | Life | Light | Love | Mind |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Character | Freedom | Hope | Power | Understand |

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Lady Blessington, born Margaret Power

A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is always influenced by his head.

Character | Heart | Man | Woman |

Thomas Brooks

Nothing humbles and breaks the heart of a sinner like mercy and love. Souls that converse much with sin and wrath, may be much terrified; but souls that converse much with grace and mercy, will be much; humbled.

Character | Grace | Heart | Love | Mercy | Nothing | Sin | Will |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

Character | Heart | Joy | Mind |

Jean de La Bruyère

He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.

Character | Recompense | Success |

Hugh Blair

The fatal fondness of indulging in a spirit of ridicule, and the injurious and irreparable consequences which sometimes attend the too severe reply, can never be condemned with more asperity than it deserves. Not to offend is the first step towards pleasing. To give pain is as much an offence against humanity as against good-breeding, and surely it is as well to abstain from an action because it is sinful, as because it is unpolite.

Action | Character | Consequences | Good | Humanity | Pain | Ridicule | Spirit |

Phillips Brooks

It is better to inspire the heart with a noble sentiment than to teach the mind a truth of science.

Better | Character | Heart | Mind | Science | Sentiment | Teach | Truth |

Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL

The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure. Thus one realizes the truth of non-duality.

Character | Circumstances | Duality | Failure | Life | Life | Man | Spirit | Success | Truth | Wise |

James Boswell

A gentleman who had been very unhappy I marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Character | Experience | Hope | Marriage | Wife |

Jean de La Bruyère

We hope to grow old, and yet we fear old age; that is, we are willing to live, and afraid to die.

Age | Character | Fear | Hope | Old age | Afraid | Old |

Jeremiah Burroughs or Burroughes

That which cometh from the heart will go to the heart.

Character | Heart | Will | Wisdom |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

Character | Heart | Inspiration | Mind | Will | Wisdom |

Susan Fenimore Cooper, fully Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper

A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accidents than of that reason of which we so much boast.

Character | Events | History | Reason | Wisdom |