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

Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

The very inclination to sin entails penalties.

Character | Inclination | Sin |

Christoph Ernst Luthardt

It is the inclination and tendency of the heart which finally determines the opinions of the mind.

Character | Heart | Inclination | Mind |

John Powell

He, who has no inclination to learn more, will be very apt to think that he knows enough.

Character | Enough | Inclination | Will | Learn | Think |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

Character | Conduct | Conversation | Inclination | Life | Life | Man |

Eustace Budgell

Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.

Good | Inclination | Wisdom | Happiness |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

There is a time in the lives of most of us when, despondent of all joy in an earthly future, and tortured by conflicts between inclination and duty, we transfer all the passion and fervor of our troubled souls to enthusiastic yearnings for the divine love, looking to its mercy, and taking thence the only hopes that can cheer - the only strength that can sustain us.

Duty | Future | Inclination | Joy | Love | Mercy | Passion | Strength | Time | Wisdom | Yearnings |

Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"

Whenever there is authority, there is a natural inclination to disobedience.

Authority | Disobedience | Inclination | Wisdom |

John Powell, fully Sir John Powell

He who has no inclination to learn more will be very apt to think that he knows enough.

Enough | Inclination | Will | Wisdom | Learn | Think |

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

Everything naturally loves itself, the result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being, and resists corruption as far as it can. Wherefore suicide is contrary to the inclination of nature, and to charity whereby every man should love himself.

Charity | Corruption | Inclination | Love | Man | Nature | Suicide |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Ethics is… to be regarded as a therapeutic attempt – as an endeavor to achieve, by means of a command of the superego, something which has so far not been achieved by means of any other cultural activities. As we already know, the problem before us is how to get rid of the greatest hindrance to civilization – namely, the constitutional inclination of human beings to be aggressive towards one another.

Civilization | Ethics | Inclination | Means |

B. H. Liddell Hart, fully Captain B. H. Liddell

Be very careful never to show your own bias to anyone who is giving you information, or passing it on to you. Once he sees that you have a particular inclination he will instinctively tend to tell you what he thinks will suit you, and enhance your opinion of him.

Giving | Inclination | Opinion | Will |

George Santayana

Love is but a prelude to life, an overture in which the theme of the impending work is exquisitely hinted at, but which remains nevertheless only a symbol and a promise. What is to follow, if all goes well, begins presently to appear. Passion settles down into possession, courtship into partnership, pleasure into habit. A child, half mystery and half plaything, comes to show us what we have done and to make its consequences perpetual. We see that by indulging our inclination we have woven about us a net from which we cannot escape: our choices, bearing fruit, begin to manifest our destiny. That life which once seemed to spread out infinitely before us is narrowed to one mortal career. We learn that in morals the infinite is a chimera, and that in accomplishing anything definite a man renounces everything else. He sails henceforth for one point of the compass.

Consequences | Destiny | Habit | Inclination | Life | Life | Love | Man | Mortal | Mystery | Passion | Pleasure | Promise | Work | Learn |

Immanuel Kant

Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length, comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but thou shalt do good to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fullness and consummation of the inclination to do good.

Duty | Good | Inclination | Love | Mankind | Will |

Jonathan Edwards

True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections… the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.

Inclination | Religion | Soul | Will |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

We are what we think we are. The habitual inclination of our thoughts determines our talents and abilities, and our personality... So whatever you want to be, start to develop that pattern now. You can instill any trend in your consciousness right now, provided you inject a strong thought in your mind; then your actions and whole being will obey that thought. One must never give up the hope of becoming better.

Better | Consciousness | Hope | Inclination | Mind | Personality | Right | Thought | Will | Think | Thought |