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

John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom

It is a shame for a man to desire honor because of his noble progenitors, and not to deserve it by his own virtue.

Character | Desire | Honor | Man | Shame | Virtue | Virtue |

William Congreve

Thought precedes the will to think, and error lives ere reason can be born. Reason, the power to guess at right and wrong, the twinkling lamp of wand'ring life, that winks and wakes by turns fooling the follower 'twixt shade and shining.

Character | Error | Power | Reason | Right | Thought | Will | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

Character | Energy | Freedom | Growth | Intelligence | Liberty | People | Power | Progress | Spirit | Worth | Intellect |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Consider and act with reference to the true ends of existence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Action | Character | Ends | Eternity | Existence | Life | Life | Will | World |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Action | Character | Eternity | Life | Life | Will | World |

Thomas Chalmers

Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write you name, in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.

Character | Deeds | Destroy | Good | Heaven | Kindness | Love | Mercy | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Deeds |

Parks Cousins

Make good habits and they will make you.

Character | Good | Will |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is that fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangement of a boundless Providence.

Character | Human nature | Man | Nature | Prayer | Providence |

Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Character | Determination | Education | Genius | Men | Nothing | Persistence | Will | World | Talent |

Callimachus NULL

More lightly do his sorrows press upon a man, when to a friend or fellow traveller he tells his griefs.

Character | Friend | Man | Wisdom |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

Honesty is the best policy, I will stick to that. The good shall have my hand and heart, but the bad neither foot nor fellowship. And in my mind, the main point of governing, is to make a good beginning.

Character | Good | Honesty | Policy | Will |

Allan Chalmers, fully Allan Knight Chalmers

Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten. Your name and your good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.

Character | Deeds | Good | Heaven | Kindness | Love | Mercy | Will | Deeds |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

All beginnings are difficult, but there is nothing that stands in the way when you have a strong will to accomplish. The essential thing is to be sincerely resolved to be successful.

Character | Nothing | Will |

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

At times, laziness is the root of taking action. When we feel an urge to give in to a desire, we might hear a whisper telling us that something is not right. Laziness, however, prevents us from fighting that desire and we give in to our bad habit.

Action | Character | Desire | Fighting | Habit | Laziness | Right |

Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown

If your everyday practice is to open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you as far as you can go. And then you’ll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.

Character | Emotions | People | Practice | Will | Understand |

L. O. Dawson

A friend is not so much one to whom you can go for help when you are in trouble. That has its value. But a friend is one to whom you can go when he is in trouble.

Character | Friend | Wisdom |