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

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Force without reason falls of its own weight.

Force | Reason | Wisdom |

Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body, the producers and consumers themselves.

Action | Body | Depression | Wisdom |

George Horne

To reject wisdom because the person who communicates it is uncouth and his manners are inelegant, what is it but to throw away a pineapple and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?

Manners | Reason | Wisdom |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Brute strength bereft of reason falls by its own weight.

Reason | Strength | Wisdom |

David Hume

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the salve of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Office | Passion | Reason | Wisdom |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

We are not only made in God’s image, but that we are made to image God - to reflect His freedom, joy, compassion and peace in our lives... When religion becomes reduced to an outward observation of rules and ceremonies and an intolerance toward the beliefs of others, we are mistaking the oyster for the pearl. The oyster is certainly valuable, but it is of infinitely greater value when it promotes the growth of the pearl... We cannot reason our way back to the roots of religion. We cannot trap God in stale dogmas or narrow creeds. Our purpose is to make religion a continuous living experience, to lead us toward a resurrection not of the dead but of the living who are dead to their own truth. Then religion becomes a thread that can both link us to the past and guide us to our future.

Compassion | Experience | Freedom | Future | God | Growth | Intolerance | Joy | Observation | Past | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Religion | Truth | Wisdom | God | Value |

David Hume

'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Reason | Wisdom | World |

William James

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed.

Opportunity | Unique | Wisdom |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.

Opportunity | Wisdom |

Louis Johannot

The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents is because it helps me to forgive their children.

Children | Parents | Reason | Wisdom | Forgive |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

The reason for the sublime simplicity in the works of nature lies all too often in the sublime shortsightedness in the observer.

Nature | Reason | Simplicity | Wisdom |

Rudyard Kipling

Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.

Cause | History | Nations | Reason | Wisdom |

Stephen LaBerge

Being 'awake in your dreams' provides the opportunity for unique and compelling adventures rarely surpassed elsewhere in life... [As a skill] it has considerable potential for promoting personal growth and self-development, enhancing self-confidence, improving mental and physical health, facilitating creative problem-solving, and helping you to progress on the path to self-mastery.

Confidence | Dreams | Growth | Health | Life | Life | Opportunity | Progress | Self | Self-confidence | Self-mastery | Skill | Unique | Wisdom |

Leone Levi

Birth and death are like two ships in a harbor. There is no reason to rejoice at the ship setting out on a journey [birth], not knowing what she may encounter on the high seas, but we should rejoice at the ship returning to port [death] safely.

Birth | Death | Journey | Knowing | Reason | Wisdom |

William George Jordan

Happiness is the greatest paradox in nature. It can grow in any soil, live under any condition. It defies environment. The reason for this is that it does not come from without but from within. Whenever you see a person seeking happiness outside himself, you can be sure he has never found it.

Nature | Paradox | Reason | Wisdom | Happiness |

Gottfried Leibniz, fully Gottfried Wilhalm von Leibniz, Baron von Leibnitz

As there is an infinite number of possible universes in the ideas of God, and as only one can exist, there must be sufficient reason for God’s choice, to determine him to one rather than to another. And this reason can only be found in the fitness, or in the degrees of perfection, which these worlds contain.

Choice | God | Ideas | Perfection | Reason | Wisdom |

Eugène Marin Labiche

Men become attached to us not by reason of the services we render them, but by reason of the services they render us.

Men | Reason | Wisdom |

John Locke

Curiosity in children is but an appetite for knowledge. One great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.

Appetite | Children | Curiosity | Knowledge | Reason | Time | Wisdom |