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

Robert A. Heinlein, fully Robert Anson Heinlein, pen name for Anson MacDonald

Ninety percent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business.

Ability | Business | Character | Mind | Wisdom |

Rollo C. Hester

In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning.

Character | Cleanliness | Confidence | Courtesy | Discipline | Enthusiasm | Health | Honesty | Initiative | Inspiration | Joy | Modesty | Patience | Perseverance | Power | Simplicity | Struggle | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Privilege | Value |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

Much of this world’s wisdom is still acquired by necromancy, by consulting the oracular dead.

Character | Wisdom | World |

Henry Home, Lord Kames

An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his wishes will oblige you to stop short at last after he has become headstrong.

Character | Impossibility | Passion | Will | Wishes | Child |

Rav Huna

A man is led the way he wishes to follow.

Character | Man | Wishes |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom to have lived free from folly.

Character | Folly | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

David Hume

Among the other excellencies of man, this is one, that he can form the image of perfection much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.

Character | Experience | Man | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Edward Porter Humphrey

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

Character | Knowing | Wisdom | Worth |

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear.

Absence | Belief | Character | Courage | Fear | Wisdom |

Robert Hutchins, fully Robert Maynard Hutchins

Nature will not forgive those who fail to fulfill the law of their being. The law of human beings is wisdom and goodness, not limited acquisition.

Character | Law | Nature | Will | Wisdom | Forgive |

Hubert Humphrey, fully Hubert Horatio Humphrey

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

Character | Knowing | Wisdom | Worth |

Harry E. Humphreys, Jr.

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

Character | Knowing | Wisdom | Worth |

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

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.

Character | Desire | God | Humility | Man | Nothing | Power | Silence | Soul | Wishes |

David Hume

In this sullen apathy neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found.

Apathy | Character | Wisdom | Happiness |

Gloria D. Karpinski

Nonresistance isn’t passive. Passivity suggests powerlessness. But non-resistance is extremely powerful. It means we’re consciously choosing what we wish to empower. Nonresistance is the action of wisdom that assesses a situation and realizes there is nothing to be gained from fighting it.

Action | Character | Fighting | Means | Nothing | Wisdom |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as to a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.

Action | Character | God | Mind | Truth | Understanding | Wishes | God | Understand |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

He who always seeks more light the more he finds, and finds more the more he seeks, is one of the few happy mortals who take and give in every point of time. The tide and ebb of giving and receiving is the sum of human happiness, which he alone enjoys who always wishes to acquire new knowledge, and always finds it.

Character | Giving | Happy | Knowledge | Light | Time | Wishes |

Lin-chi, also Lin-chi Yi-sen, Lin-chi I-hsuan, Rinzai, Rinzai Gigen, Linji, Línjì Yìxuán NULL

When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.

Character | Men | Will | Wise |