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 Welwood

Relationship as a path leads us on a journey of the heart - which involves becoming more fully human, more available to life as a whole. Intimate relationships are ideally suited as this kind of path because they inspire our heart to open, while at the same time showing us where we are most stuck.

Character | Heart | Journey | Life | Life | Relationship | Time |

William Wordsworth

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself that either thought or theory.

Action | Character | Thought | Thought |

Paul Tyner

The absolute demonstration of man’s mastery of fate and command of all condition - the victory of man - all men in this racial man, this elder brother of mankind in his triumph over sin, fear and death! But one thing had remained in my mind as necessary to prove to the mass of men to-day man’s absolute supremacy over death in all its forms as an attribute of his oneness with God, with Eternal Life, Perfect Love, Perfect Justice, Omniscience and Omnipotence.

Absolute | Character | Day | Death | Eternal | Fate | Fear | God | Justice | Life | Life | Love | Man | Mankind | Men | Mind | Omnipotence | Omniscience | Oneness | Sin | Fate |

Daniel Webster

If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon bronze, time will efface it; if we build temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we imbue them with just principles of action, with fear of wrong and love of right, we engrave on those tables something which no time can obliterate, and which will brighten and brighten through all eternity.

Action | Character | Eternity | Fear | Love | Principles | Right | Time | Will | Work | Wrong |

W. H. Auden and J. Garrett

Poetry is not concerned with telling people what to do, but with extending our knowledge of good and evil, perhaps making the necessity for action more urgent and its nature more clear, but only leading us to the point where it is possible for us to make a rational and moral choice.

Action | Choice | Evil | Good | Knowledge | Nature | Necessity | People | Poetry | Wisdom |

Harry F. Banks, real name possibly Harry Band

There is only one proof of ability - results. Men with ability in action get results.

Ability | Action | Men | Wisdom |

Howard D. Bare

Four men climbed a mountain to see the view. The first wore new and expensive shoes which did not fit, and he complained constantly of his feet. The second had a greedy eye and kept wishing for this house or that farm. The third saw clouds and worried for fear it might rain. But the fourth really saw the marvelous view. His mountain top experience was looking away from the valley out of which he had just climbed to higher things.

Experience | Fear | Men | Wisdom |

Leo Baeck

Through faith man experiences the meaning of the world; through action he is to give to it a meaning.

Action | Faith | Man | Meaning | Wisdom | World |

James Ford Bell

Fear is an insidious virus. Given a breeding place in our minds, it will permeate the whole body of our work; it will eat away our spirit and block the forward path of our endeavors. Fear is the greatest enemy of progress... Fear is met and destroyed with courage.

Body | Courage | Enemy | Fear | Progress | Spirit | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Annette Baier, née Stoop

A complete moral philosophy would tell us how and why we should act and feel towards others in relationships of shifting and varying power asymmetry and shifting and varying intimacy.

Philosophy | Power | Wisdom |

Mary Ritter Beard

Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.

Action | Study | Wisdom |

Edward Bellamy

The lie of fear is the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud, the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition are a constant premium of lying.

Cowardice | Fear | Fraud | Lust | Lying | Men | Wisdom |

Honoré de Balzac

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

Cruelty | Fear | Wisdom |

Ludwig Börne, fully Karl Ludwig Börne

There is nothing to fear but fear.

Fear | Nothing | Wisdom |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.

Action | Example | Habit | Influence | Reason | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |

Phillips Brooks

Never fear to bring the sublimest motive to the smallest duty, and the most infinite comfort to the smallest trouble.

Comfort | Duty | Fear | Wisdom |

Christian Nestell Bovee

We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we must upon it.

Action | Day | Experience | Nothing | Thought | Wisdom | Learn |