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

Euripedes NULL

No man on earth is truly free. All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

Character | Conscience | Earth | Fear | Man | Money | Necessity | Opinion | Public |

Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue. We have seen a thousand people esteemed, either for the merit they had not yet attained or for that they no longer possessed.

Character | Merit | People | Reputation | Virtue | Virtue |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Pleasure comes from obtaining what we feel we are lacking. We have the ability to choose our answer to the question, “What am I lacking right now?” Some people answer materialistically. It is wiser to choose to focus on your lack of spiritual accomplishments and then you can derive pleasure from meeting those needs.

Ability | Character | Focus | People | Pleasure | Question | Right |

Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke

Live by admiration rather than disgust. Judge people by their best, not by their worst.

Admiration | Character | People |

Orville Dewey

Occupied people are not unhappy people.

Character | People |

Y. Eibeschuetz

No person sees all of his faults. Every person considers himself righteous an feels whatever he does is correct. For every act a person does, he has a thousand excuses and rationalizations. A person does not see what goes against his prejudices. Other people can be much more objective about you and can find your wrongdoings and faults. Hence, be willing to listen to what an admonisher has to say.

Character | People |

Rudolf Driekurs

We can change our whole life and the attitude of people around us simply by changing ourselves.

Change | Character | Life | Life | People |

Francois Urbain Domergue

Some people study all their life, and at their death they have learned everything except to think.

Character | Death | Life | Life | People | Study |

Helen Gahagan Douglas

Character isn’t inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Action | Anger | Character | Fear | Hate | Mind | Self | Thought | Thought |

J. Stanley Durkee

You can't stop the people from thinking - but you can start them.

Character | People | Thinking |

Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke

Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live.

Character | People | Afraid |

Madame Deluzy, Luzy Dorothee

Some people regret that they have poor memories. Alas! it is much more difficult to forget.

Character | People | Regret |

Walter Duranty

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.

Character | People | Wishes | Trouble | Think |

L. G. Elliott, fully Lloyd George Elliott

Vacillating people seldom succeed. They seldom win the solid respect of their fellows. Successful men and women are very careful in reaching decisions and very persistent and determined in action thereafter.

Action | Character | Men | People | Respect | Wisdom | Respect |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.

Blame | Character | Forgiveness | People | Truth | Will |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

If a person demands to have everything he wishes, the lack of even a small pleasure can make him feel extremely unhappy. Excessive demands can even lead some people to consider their entire lives as worthless if they are missing some minor pleasure that they arbitrarily demand.

Character | People | Pleasure | Wishes |