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

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

It is one thing to be carried through an endless life, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine Mind. The temporal world seems to emulate in part that which it cannot fully obtain or express, tying itself to whatever presence there is in this exiguous and fleeting moment - a presence which, since it carries a certain image of that abiding Presence, gives to whatever may partake of it the quality of seeming to have being. But because it could not stay, it undertook an infinite journey of time; and so it came to pass that, by going, it continued that life, whose plenitude it could not comprehend by staying.

Character | Journey | Life | Life | Mind | Time | World |

Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

The ability to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.

Ability | Character | Love |

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 |

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

There is nothing that can be called a “Self,” and there is no such thing as “mine” in all the world.

Character | Nothing | Self | World |

Richard Cecil

To love to preach is one thing - to love those to whom we preach, quite another.

Character | Love |

Samuel Butler

To have the power to forgive, is empire and prerogative, and ‘tis in crowns a nobler gem, to grant a pardon than condemn.

Character | Pardon | Power |

Richard Cecil

Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of what he is not.

Aims | Appearance | Character | Folly | Hypocrisy | Man |

Stuart Cloete, fully Edward Fairly Stuart Graham

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Character | Happy |

Pierre Charron

Mutability is the a badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike.

Character | Design | Man | Mutability |

Horace Bushnell

The nobles charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents, more or less directly, the fruitfulness and creativeness of religion.

Character | Justice | Law | Learning | Religion | World |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

Strive to know thyself, the most difficult thing to know that can be imagined.

Character | Know thyself |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Humility is not a weak and timid quality; it must be carefully distinguished from a groveling spirit. There is such a thing as an honest pride and self-respect. Though we may be servants of all, we should be servile to none.

Character | Humility | Pride | Respect | Self | Spirit |

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 |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Character | Earth |

John Dewey

We always live at the time we live and not at some other time, and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same thing in the future. This is the only preparation which in the long run amounts to anything.

Character | Experience | Future | Meaning | Present | Time |

Sholom B. Dubov

The purpose of life is to do the right thing at the right time... Everything that comes your way is your purpose in life... put it into an order, a perspective.

Character | Life | Life | Order | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Time |

Albert Einstein

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.

Character | Day | Earth | Fate | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mind | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Smile | Sympathy | Work | Fate | Happiness |

W. Macneile Dixon, fully William Macneile Dixon

The astonishing thing about him [man] is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals, far removed from his material surroundings and animal activities, and in no way suggested by them, yet for which, such is his affection, he is willing to endure toils and privations, to sacrifice pleasures, to disdain griefs and frustrations. The inner truth is that every man is himself a creator, by birth and nature, an artist, an architect and fashioner of worlds.

Birth | Character | Disdain | Ideals | Ideas | Man | Nature | Passion | Sacrifice | Truth | Vision |

Douglas L. Edmonds, fully Douglas Lyman Edmonds

How many of us are waiting for the opportunity to do some great thing for the betterment of our community, forgetting that the solution of the problem requires only the active intelligent fulfillment of individual civic duty. The only things which are wrong about our Government are the things which are wrong with you and me. Democracy is never a thing done; it is and always will be a goal to be achieved. It means action, not passive acquiescence in things as they are; it requires alertness to duty, a dynamic faith, a willingness to give for the good of all. It can live only as a result of loyalty and devotion to its principles expressed by daily needs.

Action | Character | Democracy | Devotion | Duty | Dynamic | Faith | Fulfillment | Good | Government | Individual | Loyalty | Loyalty | Means | Opportunity | Principles | Waiting | Will | Wrong | Government |