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

Herman Lincoln Wayland

Show us the man who never makes a mistake and we will show you a man who never makes anything. The capacity for occasional blundering is inseparable from the capacity to bring things to pass.

Capacity | Character | Man | Mistake | Will |

Daniel Webster

Knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the large term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education.

Character | Circumstances | Education | Feelings | Knowledge | Morality | Motives |

Horace Traubel

Have I met the hour patiently, without fear, at the portal? Now is my name called, of the lip of my love has spoken: Do I mistake you, O divine Signaler? is it after all some other soul that is hailed. My self is my answer: there’s that in my heart responds, meeting the call with equal voice, establishing forever the unspeakable bond! Bond that does not bind - bond that frees - bond that discovers and bestows. Look! I am flushed with inexhaustible possessions! The old measures vanish, I am expanded to infinite sweep... Before birth, seeing birth, after life seeing life!... This minute grown infinite, the far worlds spread before me, the endless drift of soul...

Birth | Character | Fear | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mistake | Possessions | Self | Soul | Old |

Norman Bradburn

Happiness is a resultant of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other.

Absolute | Feelings | Wisdom |

Henry H. Buckley

Mistakes are costly and somebody must pay. The time to correct a mistake is before a mistake is made. The causes of mistakes are first, "I didn't know"; second, "I didn't think"; third, "I didn't care."

Care | Mistake | Time | Wisdom |

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

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Mistake | Wisdom |

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

Philosophers have done wisely when they have told us to cultivate our reason rather than our feelings, for reason reconciles us to the daily things of existence; our feelings teach us to yearn after the far, the difficult, the unseen.

Existence | Feelings | Reason | Teach | Wisdom |

Donald Davidson

False beliefs tend to undermine the identification of the subject matter; to undermine, therefore, the validity of a description of the belief as being about that subject... The more things a believer is right about, the sharper his errors are. To much mistake simply blurs the focus.

Belief | Focus | Mistake | Right | Wisdom |

Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

They believe their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelings people really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; we talk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know very little beyond the words.

Crime | Cruelty | Deference | Devotion | Enthusiasm | Feelings | Indignation | Little | Nothing | Oppression | People | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Words |

Nathanael Emmons, also Nathaniel Emmons

The highest graces of music flow from the feelings of the heart.

Feelings | Heart | Music | Wisdom |

Lloyd C. Douglas, fully Lloyd Cassel Douglas, born Doya C. Douglas

It was probably a mistake to pursue happiness, much better to create happiness, still better to create happiness for others.

Better | Mistake | Wisdom | Happiness |

Albert Einstein

It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curious of inquiry. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

Coercion | Duty | Enjoyment | Grave | Inquiry | Means | Mistake | Nothing | Sense | Wisdom | Instruction | Think |

Nathaniel Emmons

The highest graces of music flow from the feelings of the heart.

Feelings | Heart | Music | Wisdom |

Henry Ford

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

Achievement | Mistake | Wisdom |

Ann Faraday

Dreams reflect not only actual happenings, but also a whole host of thoughts and feelings that passed us by during the day because we were too busy or unwilling to catch them. [Besides expressing] the thoughts of our heart... powerful revealers of hidden talents, buried beauty, and unsuspected creative energy. They urge us to recognize that we are actually a lot nicer than we have hitherto realized.

Beauty | Day | Dreams | Energy | Feelings | Heart | Wisdom |

Saint Gertrude, aka Saint Gertrude of Nivelles NULL

It is a fearful mistake to believe that because our wishes are not accomplished that they can do no harm.

Harm | Mistake | Wisdom | Wishes |

William Ewart Gladstone

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.

Argument | Logic | Men | Mind | Mistake | Strength | Wisdom |

James Hadfield, fully Captain James Arthur Hadfield

It is one of the many paradoxes of psychology that the pursuit of happiness defeats its own purpose. We find happiness only when we do not directly seek it. An analogy will make this clear. In listening to music at a concert, we experience pleasurable feelings only so long as our attention is directed towards the music. But if in order to increase our happiness we give all our attention to our subjective feeling of happiness, it vanishes. Nature contrives to make it impossible for anyone to attain happiness by turning into himself.

Attention | Experience | Feelings | Listening | Music | Nature | Order | Psychology | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Brian Greer

There is no separation between a patient’s neurobiology, spiritual life, life perspectives, and quality of life force. Words, and spiritual/therapeutic interventions can tangibly affect a patient’s neurochemistry and physical health just as assuredly as psycho-pharmacological drugs can tangibly affect a patient’s feelings and thoughts... I have found that working with the meaning of a patient’s illness can profoundly alter not only the prognosis but can influence and give meaning to all other aspects of a patient’s life. Depression, for example, is often a direct communication from the soul that one’s belief system is not working... It is all too easy, and part of the human condition, to be misled by our lower half into believing that the sensory world is all that’s real.

Belief | Depression | Example | Feelings | Force | Health | Influence | Life | Life | Meaning | Soul | System | Wisdom | Words | World |

Frederick Hertz, until 1946 Friedrich Otto Hertz, aka Germanus Liber

At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being.

Assertion | God | Heart | Mistake | People | Wisdom | God |