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 Matthew Adams

It is indifference which is the cause of most of our unhappiness. Indifference to religion, to the happiness of others, and to the precious gift of freedom, and the wide liberty that is the inheritance of all in a free land. Are we our "Brother's Keeper"? We certainly are! If we had no regard for others' feelings or fortune, we would grow cold and indifferent to life itself. Bound up with selfishness, we could not hope for the success that could easily be ours.

Cause | Character | Feelings | Fortune | Freedom | Hope | Indifference | Inheritance | Land | Liberty | Life | Life | Regard | Religion | Selfishness | Success | Unhappiness | Happiness |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

The greatest manifestation of your love for the Almighty can be expressed on your day of death. Before your death, you might be thinking about how you have not fulfilled all of your wishes and plans. In the moments before your death you might have complaints against the Almighty, or you might fatalistically accept your death by saying, What can be done? My body is giving in to the laws of nature. The doctors have given up hope.” Both of these attitudes are wrong You now face the greatest challenge of your life. You have the potential to submit yourself to the will of the Almighty with love. This level takes preparation. If a person has not mastered control of his thoughts, he is likely to waste his last moments thinking of petty resentments and desires. Frequently confusion and fear of death swallow up every other thought unless one has prepared for that moment.

Body | Challenge | Character | Control | Day | Death | Fear | Giving | Hope | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Thinking | Thought | Waste | Will | Wishes | Wrong | Thought |

Francis Atterbury

It is impossible to have a lively hope in another life, and yet be deeply immersed in the enjoyments of this.

Character | Hope | Life | Life |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Hope is the best part of our riches. What sufficeth it that we have the wealth of the Indies in our pockets, if we have not the hope of heaven in our souls?

Character | Heaven | Hope | Riches | Wealth |

William Blake

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Character | Enough | Excess | Wisdom |

Stephan Bodian

Give up the notion that there is a final state to attain. Spiritual life consists of ongoing practice undertaken as a lifetime work. This realization breeds humility, especially when we realize that in our initial infatuation with enlightenment, we underestimate the amount of inner work necessary to free us from our addictive patterns of thought and behavior.

Behavior | Character | Enlightenment | Humility | Life | Life | Practice | Thought | Work | Thought |

Pearl S. Buck, fully Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Character | Freedom | Hope | Power | Understand |

James Boswell

A gentleman who had been very unhappy I marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Character | Experience | Hope | Marriage | Wife |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire. A generous habit of thought and action carries with it an incalculable influence.

Action | Character | Example | Habit | Influence | Reason | Thought | Thought |

Jean de La Bruyère

We hope to grow old, and yet we fear old age; that is, we are willing to live, and afraid to die.

Age | Character | Fear | Hope | Old age | Afraid | Old |

Samuel Butler

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever, or amiable.

Care | Character | Good | People | Taste | Thought | Thought |

Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.

Character | Evil | Good | Hope | Little | Progress |