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

George Matthew Adams

If we would keep filling our minds with the picture of happy things ahead, many of the worries and anxieties, and perhaps ill health, would naturally melt away... If we lived in the atmosphere of expectancy, so many of our petty problems would be no problems at all! Always expect the best.

Character | Happy | Health | Problems |

Austonius, fully Decimus Magnus Ausonius

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.

Character | Nothing |

Adolfo Barcella

Unrequited love is the meaning of life. We’re here to love but not to be loved, to give but not receive. Our mission in this world is to improve humanity and leave a better history than we found. Only selfless love has such power. Only love without interest or expectation of reward can change human beings... To give love without receiving love is the truest love and brings the greatest happiness there is in life.

Better | Change | Character | Expectation | History | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mission | Power | Receive | Reward | World | Expectation | Happiness |

Louis-Aimé Martin

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals. Whether slaves or free, they reign, because their empire is that of the affections.

Character |

Honoré de Balzac

There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman’s glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

Character | Events | Heart | Little | Woman |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

Every person in the world waits for signs of recognition and affection from others.

Character | World |

Dwight Douglas Andrews

Real joy seems dissonant from the human character in its present condition; and if it be felt, it must come from a higher region, for the world is shadowed by sorrow; thorns array the ground; the very clouds, while they weep fertility on our mountains, seem also to shed a tear on man’s grave who departs, unlike the beauties of summer, to return no more; who fades unlike the sons of the forest, which another summer beholds new clothed, when he is unclothed and forgotten.

Character | Grave | Joy | Man | Present | Sorrow | World |

Richard Baxter

Paganism attributes the creation of the world to blind chance.

Chance | Character | World |

Philip S. Berg, originally Feivel Gruberger

Our souls are like streams that can never rest until they once again mingle with the Infinite sea... We are here to earn the beneficence of the Creator. This is a process sometimes too difficult to accomplish in one lifetime, but fortunately we are provided with as many lifetimes as necessary.

Character | Rest |

Thomas Adams

He who reforms himself, has done much toward reforming others; and one reason why the world is not reformed, is, because each would have others make a beginning, and never thinks of himself doing it.

Beginning | Character | Reason | World |

Fred de Armond

A man who truly wants to make the world better should start by improving himself and his attitudes.

Better | Character | Man | Wants | World |

Arthur Aughey

There are many seasons in a man’s life - and the more exalted and responsible his position, the more frequently do these seasons recur - when the voice of duty and the dictates of feeling are opposed to each other; and it is only the weak and the wicked who yield that obedience to the selfish impulses of the heart which is due to reason and honor.

Character | Duty | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Man | Obedience | Position | Reason |

Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren

Illusion and self-deception stand in the way of an honest, penetrating and fearless self-appraisal. Though it would appear that we have access to the innermost core of our individual being, and that there is nothing in the world with which we are on more intimate terms than our own self, the self remains an elusive object of knowledge and understanding.

Character | Illusion | Individual | Knowledge | Nothing | Object | Self | Self-deception | Understanding | World |

Phillip Adams

When people say to me: "How do you do so many things?" I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: "How to you do so little?" It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever."

Character | Confidence | Little | Meaning | People |

Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon, aka Rabbi Avraham Maimuni, aka Rabbeinu Avraham ben ha-Rambam NULL

Do not yearn for any other situation in the world besides the one you actually find yourself in.

Character | World |

J. Beaumont

To revenge a wrong is easy, usual, and natural, and, as the world thinks, savors of nobleness of mind; but religion teaches the contrary, and tells us it is better to neglect than to require it.

Better | Character | Mind | Neglect | Religion | Revenge | World | Wrong |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face.

Character | Light | Modesty | Practice | Will | World |

H. W. Arnold

The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success.

Character | Enthusiasm | Man | Success | Will | Wisdom | World |

H. B.

I live in the world, but I seem to myself not of it!.. Natural phenomena are but the shadows of the spirit form which they spring, as the human face changes under the influence of love, hatred or fear... When, O when, shall I be able to reveal its poetry? I see everywhere and in ever object unceasing motion, and in that motion a creative force forever and forever repeating and re-repeating the same simple process as to infinity. Through all nature the grand rhythms roll and heaven and earth are filled with the melody. Men are but boys chasing shadows. The spiritual significance of the world none seem to see - the infinite simplicity of its process are none care to understand.

Boys | Care | Character | Earth | Fear | Force | Heaven | Influence | Love | Melody | Men | Nature | Object | Phenomena | Poetry | Simplicity | Spirit | World |