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 Stuart Benson

Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built into the hearts of the children as they grow up.

Character | Children | Ideals | Principles | Right |

Honoré de Balzac

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals - that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

Character | Eternal | Ideals | Man | World | Truths |

Bias NULL

The majority is wicked.

Character | Majority |

Norman Douglas, aka George Norman Douglas

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.

Character | Ideals | Wisdom |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion.

Character | Majority | Men | Persuasion |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

We settle things by a majority vote, and the psychological effect of doing that is to create the impression that the majority is probably right. Of course, on any fine issue the majority is sure to be wrong. Think of taking a majority vote on the best music. Jazz would win over Chopin. Or on the best novel. Many cheap scribblers would win over Tolstoy. And any day a prizefight will get a bigger crowd, larger gate receipts and wider newspaper publicity than any new revelation of goodness, truth or beauty could hope to achieve in a century.

Beauty | Character | Day | Hope | Impression | Majority | Music | Revelation | Right | Truth | Will | Wrong | Beauty | Think |

Matthew Henson. fully Matthew Alexander "Matt" Henson

There can be no conquest to the man who dwells in the narrow and small environment of a groveling life, and there can be no vision to the man the horizon of whose vision is limited by the bounds of self. But the great things of the world, the great accomplishments of the world, have been achieved by men who had high ideals and who have received great visions. The path is not easy, the climbing is rugged and hard, but the glory at the end is worthwhile.

Character | Conquest | Glory | Ideals | Life | Life | Man | Men | Self | Vision | World |

Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, also known as Ben Ezra or Abenezra

The vast majority of people are slavers to their desires. The true king who deserves a royal crown is only a person who is free from the pressures of his desires.

Character | Majority | People |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

Character | Majority | Men |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

The majority of man are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, terribly objective sometimes, but the real task is in fact to be objective towards oneself and subjective towards all others.

Character | Majority | Man |

Eda J. LeShan

We are not asking our children to do their own best but to be the best. Education is in danger of becoming a religion based on fear; its doctrine is to compete. The majority of our children are being led to believe that they are doomed to failure in a world which has room only for those at the top.

Character | Children | Danger | Doctrine | Education | Failure | Fear | Majority | Religion | World | Danger | Failure |

Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.

Character | Majority | Mankind |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

The majority of men are more capable of great actions than of good ones.

Character | Good | Majority | Men |

Whitney Young, fully Whitney Moore Young, Jr.

The unhealthy gap between what we preach in America and what we often practice creates a moral dry rot that eats at the very foundation of our democratic ideals and values.

Character | Ideals | Practice |

Luella F. Phelan

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. People grow old only by deserting their ideals and outgrowing the consciousness of youth. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. You are as old as your doubt; your fear; your despair. The way to keep young is to keep your faith young. Keep your self-confidence young. Keep your hope young.

Character | Confidence | Consciousness | Despair | Doubt | Enthusiasm | Faith | Fear | Hope | Ideals | Life | Life | Mind | People | Self | Self-confidence | Soul | Time | Youth | Old |

Andrew Preston Peabody

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws to be led by permanent ideals - that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

Character | Eternal | Ideals | Man | World | Truths |

Eleazar ben Simon

The world is judged by the majority of its people, and an individual by the majority of his deeds. Happy he who performs a good deed: that may tip the scale for him and the world.

Character | Deeds | Good | Happy | Individual | Majority | People | World |

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

Character | Majority | Pain | Race |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. This is bad for everyone; the majority lose all genuine taste of their own, and the minority become cultural snobs.

Art | Entertainment | Majority | Taste | Wisdom |