Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Quotes Listing

John Abercrombie

Candor may be considered as a compound of justice and the love of truth.

Candor | Character | Justice | Love | Truth |

George Matthew Adams

If we would keep filling our minds with the picture of happy things ahead, many of the worries and anxieties, and perhaps ill health, would naturally melt away... If we lived in the atmosphere of expectancy, so many of our petty problems would be no problems at all! Always expect the best.

Character | Happy | Health | Problems |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

From cradle to grave this problem of running order through chaos, direction through space, discipline through freedom, unity through multiplicity, has always been, and must always be, the task of education.

Character | Discipline | Education | Freedom | Grave | Order | Space | Unity |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

From the very beginning of a person’s life one learns that the purpose of life is not uninterrupted pleasure. Every infant suffers pains and illnesses. We should not perceive illness and pain as negative. Suffering teaches us humility. We learn that we do not have complete power over ourselves.

Beginning | Character | Humility | Life | Life | Pain | Pleasure | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering | Learn |

Albertano of Brescia NULL

Often have I heard it said, What good thing you can do, do not defer it.

Character | Good | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

A man's life is what his thoughts make of it.

Character | Life | Life | Man |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Our dispositions will be suitable to that which we most frequently think on; for the soul is, as it were, tinged with the colour and complexion of its own thoughts.

Character | Soul | Will | Think |

Apocrypha NULL

The greatest of virtues, self-control.

Character | Control | Self | Self-control |

Arthur Aughey

Cheerfulness sharpens the edge and removes the rust from the mind. A joyous heart supplies oil to our inward machinery, and makes the whole of our powers work with ease and efficiency.

Character | Cheerfulness | Efficiency | Heart | Mind | Work |

Austonius, fully Decimus Magnus Ausonius

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.

Character | Nothing |

Honoré de Balzac

How can we explain the perpetuity of envy - a vice which yields no return?

Character | Envy | Vice |

Isaac Barrow

Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back.

Character | Sin |

Alan Barth

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Character | Criticism | Dissent | Indispensable |

Adolfo Barcella

Unrequited love is the meaning of life. We’re here to love but not to be loved, to give but not receive. Our mission in this world is to improve humanity and leave a better history than we found. Only selfless love has such power. Only love without interest or expectation of reward can change human beings... To give love without receiving love is the truest love and brings the greatest happiness there is in life.

Better | Change | Character | Expectation | History | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mission | Power | Receive | Reward | World | Expectation | Happiness |

Martin Bentzel von Sternau und Hohenau

Candor is the seal of a noble mind, the ornament and pride of man, the sweetest charm of woman, the scorn of a rascal and the rarest virtue of sociability.

Candor | Character | Man | Mind | Pride | Virtue | Virtue | Woman |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

Obedience to duty means resistance to self.

Character | Duty | Means | Obedience | Self | Wisdom |

Pierre de Bérulle

Man is created by thought; that which he thinks upon in our life becomes in another.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Thought |

Lord Acton, John Emerich Dalberg-Acton

Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.

Character | Evil | Good | Unity |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

Character | Ends | Men | Power | Self |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

Character | Life | Life | Rivalry | Thought |

John Aiken or Aikin

He, whose first emotion on the view of an excellent production is to undervalue it, will never have one of his own to show.

Character | Will | Wisdom |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Character | Habit | Life | Life | Order |

Louis-Aimé Martin

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals. Whether slaves or free, they reign, because their empire is that of the affections.

Character |

Rabbi Akiva, fully Rebbe Akiva ben Yosef NULL

Rejoice in adversity even more than in prosperity, for suffering brings forgiveness of sin.

Adversity | Character | Forgiveness | Prosperity | Sin | Suffering | Wisdom | Forgiveness |

Alphonse Kann

Every man has three characters - that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Character | Man |

Joseph Alleine

A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteousness and supposed graces as by his gross sins.

Character | Man | Righteousness |

Shana Alexander, fully Shana Agar Alexander

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Character | Excellence | People | Truth | Excellence |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Embellish the soul with simplicity, with prudence, and everything which is neither virtuous nor vicious. Love all men. Walk according to God; for, as a poet hath said, his laws govern all.

Character | God | Love | Men | Prudence | Prudence | Simplicity | Soul | Govern |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

In the same degree in which a man’s mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength.

Character | Freedom | Man | Mind | Passion | Strength |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

Character | Power | Soul |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited nor torpid nor playing the hypocrite.

Character | Day | Perfection |

Apocrypha NULL

Self-control and understanding, righteousness and courage, there is nothing in life more profitable than these.

Character | Control | Courage | Life | Life | Nothing | Righteousness | Self | Self-control | Understanding |

John Armstrong

Virtue and sense are one; and, trust me, still a faithless heart betrays the head unsound.

Character | Heart | Sense | Trust | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Francis Atterbury

Few consider how much we are indebted to government, because few can represent how wretched mankind would be without it.

Character | Government | Mankind |

Francis Atterbury

A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good.

Character | Good | Means |