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

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

Character | Man | Men | Opinion | Rest | Value |

Walter Bagehot

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

Character | Influence | Men | Obedience | Opinion | Public | Wisdom | Words | Think |

Bias NULL

It is better to decide between our enemies than our friends; for one of our friends will most likely become our enemy; but on the other hand, one of your enemies will probably become your friend.

Better | Character | Enemy | Friend | Will | Friends |

William Blake

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Character | Man | Mind | Opinion |

Richard Baxter

I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth.

Character | Earth | Expectation | Experience | Heaven | Love | Soul | Expectation | Friends |

Robert Collyer

A man's best friends are his ten fingers.

Character | Man | Friends |

William Ellery Channing

The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.

Character | Judgment | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Power | Progress | Property | Society | World |

J. E. Dinger

Three men are my friends - he that loves me, he that hates me and he that is indifferent to me. Who loves me, teaches me tenderness; who hates me, teaches me caution; who is indifferent to me, teaches me self-reliance.

Caution | Character | Men | Self | Self-reliance | Tenderness | Friends |

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 |

Cyrus the Great, aka Cyrus the Elder, Cyrus II or Cyrus of Persia NULL

All men have their frailties; and whoever looks for a friend without imperfections, will never find what he seeks. We love ourselves notwithstanding our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner.

Character | Frailties | Friend | Looks | Love | Men | Will | Friends |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

If you make an effort to help everyone you meet, you will feel close to everyone. A stranger is someone you have not yet helped. Doing acts of kindness for everyone you can fills your world with friends and loved ones.

Character | Effort | Kindness | Will | World | Friends |

Robert Hall

Worldly ambition is founded on pride or envy, but emulation, or laudable ambition, is actually founded in humility; for it evidently implies that we have a low opinion of our present attainments, and think it necessary to be advanced.

Ambition | Character | Envy | Humility | Opinion | Present | Pride | Ambition | Think |

Sarah Grand, pseudonymn of Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke McFall

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than in what they make us see in ourselves.

Character | Opinion | People |

M. Hulburd

Character is so largely affected by associations that we cannot afford to be indifferent as to who and what our friends are. They write their names in our albums, but they do more, they help make us what we are. Be therefore careful in selecting them; and when wisely selected, never sacrifice them.

Character | Sacrifice | Friends |

Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

If you love knowledge, you will be a master of knowledge. What you have come to know, pursue by exercise; what you have not learned, seek to add to your knowledge, for it is as reprehensible to hear a profitable saying and not grasp it as to be offered a good gift by one's friends and not accept it. Believe that many precepts are better than much wealth , for wealth quickly fails us, but precepts abide through all time.

Better | Character | Good | Knowledge | Love | Time | Wealth | Will | Friends |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Character | Comfort | Opinion | Thought |