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

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.

Character | Temper | Time |

Nosson Tzvi Finkel

When we have something for a long time we usually take it for granted. From the day we were born we have breathed air and seen sunlight and the beauty of nature. We have had sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch for such a long time we have lost our appreciation for them. We take our daily pleasures and our intellectual attainments for granted.

Appreciation | Beauty | Character | Day | Nature | Taste | Time | Appreciation | Beauty |

E. M. Forster, fully Edward Morgan Forster

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.

Character | Life | Life | People | Trust |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One always has time enough if only one applies it well.

Character | Enough | Time |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Character | Trust | Will |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Most people work for the greater part of their time for a mere living; and the little freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every means of getting rid of it.

Character | Freedom | Little | Means | People | Time | Troubles | Work |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.

Character | Cheerfulness | Heart | Honor | Mirth | Time |

Constance Foster

Every time we hold our tongues instead of returning the sharp retort, show patience with another's faults, show a little more love and kindness, we are helping to stock-pile more of these peace-bringing qualities in the world instead of armaments for war.

Character | Kindness | Little | Love | Patience | Peace | Qualities | Time | War | World |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

The best general means to insure the profitable employment of our time is to accustom ourselves to living in continual dependence upon the Spirit of God and His law, receiving, every instant, whatever He is pleased to bestow; consulting Him in every action, and having recourse to Him in our weaker moments when virtue seems to fail.

Action | Character | Dependence | God | Law | Means | Spirit | Time | Virtue | Virtue | God |

Benjamin Franklin

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality, since lost time is never found again; and what we call time enough always proves little enough. Let us then be up and doing, and doing to the purpose; so by diligence shall we do more with less perplexity.

Character | Diligence | Enough | Little | Perplexity | Prodigality | Purpose | Purpose | Time |

Owen Feltham

The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These for the most part be summed in these two - common sense and perseverance.

Character | Common Sense | Life | Life | Means | Perseverance | Qualities | Sense |

Henry Fielding

As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.

Cause | Character | Man | Matrimony | Means | Right | Surrender | Trifles | Wife | Wise |

John Cunningham Geikie

He is well along the road to perfect manhood who does not allow the thousand little worries of life to embitter his temper, or disturb his equanimity. An undivided heart which worships God alone, and trust him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Character | Equanimity | God | Heart | Life | Life | Little | Temper | Trust | Wants | God |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.

Care | Character | Eternity | Regret | Time | Will | Loss |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

What can be the aim of withholding from children, or let us say from young people, this information about the sexual life of human beings? Is it a fear of arousing interest in such matters prematurely, before it spontaneously stirs in them? Is it a hope of retarding by concealment of this kind the development of the sexual instinct in general, until such time as it can find its way into the only channels open to it in the civilized social order? Is it supposed that children would show no interest or understanding for the facts and riddles of sexual life if they were not prompted to do so by outside influence? Is it regarded as possible that the knowledge withheld from them will not reach them in other ways? Or is it genuinely and seriously intended that later on they should consider everything connected with sex as something despicable and abhorrent from which their parents and teachers wish to keep them apart as long as possible? I am really at a loss so say which of these can be the motive for the customary concealment from children of everything connected with sex. I only know that these arguments are one and all equally foolish, and that I find it difficult to pay them the compliment of serious refutation.

Character | Children | Concealment | Fear | Hope | Influence | Instinct | Knowledge | Life | Life | Order | Parents | People | Time | Understanding | Will | Loss |

Bishop of Geneva NULL

Charity that is both the means and the end, the only way by which we can reach that perfection which is, after all, but Charity itself... Just as the soul is the life of the body, so charity is the life of the soul.

Body | Character | Charity | Life | Life | Means | Perfection | Soul |

Henry Martyn Field

Mankind worships success, but thinks too little of the means by which it is attained,--what days and nights of watching and weariness; how year after year has dragged on, and seen the end still far off: all that counts for little, if the long struggle do not close in victory.

Character | Little | Mankind | Means | Struggle | Success |

Henry Fielding

Heroes, notwithstanding the high ideas which, by the means of flatterers, they may entertain of themselves, or the world may conceive of them, have certainly ore of mortal than divine about them.

Character | Ideas | Means | Mortal | World |