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

J. Beaumont

To revenge a wrong is easy, usual, and natural, and, as the world thinks, savors of nobleness of mind; but religion teaches the contrary, and tells us it is better to neglect than to require it.

Better | Character | Mind | Neglect | Religion | Revenge | World | Wrong |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

The most complete revenge is not to imitate the aggressor.

Character | Revenge |

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.

Ability | Character | Courage | Distrust | Meekness | Revenge | Self | Soul | Forgive |

Elizabeth Carew, Lady Carew, formerly Lady Elizabeth Bryan

The fairest action of our human life is scorning to revenge an injury; for who forgives without a further strife, his adversary’s heart to him doth tie: and ‘tis a firmer conquest, truly said, to win the heart than overthrow the head.

Action | Character | Conquest | Heart | Life | Life | Revenge |

Thomas Dreier

It is better to give love. Hatred is a low and degrading emotion and is so poisonous that no man is strong enough to use it safely. The hatred we think we are directing against some person or thing or system has a devilish way of turning back upon us. When we seek revenge we administer slow poison to ourselves. When we administer affection it is astonishing what magical results we obtain.

Better | Character | Enough | Love | Man | Revenge | System | Think |

Benjamin Franklin

'Tis more noble to forgive, and more manly to despise, than to revenge an injury.

Character | Despise | Revenge |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

He who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated rancor. Rage is a short madness. Rule your passion, which commands, if it do not obey; do not restrain it with a bridle, and with fetters.

Character | Grief | Madness | Passion | Rage | Rancor | Resentment | Revenge | Rule | Will |

Charles Lowe

Eat the dish of revenge cold instead of hot.

Character | Revenge |

Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself.

Character | Desire | Enemy | Man | Prudence | Prudence | Revenge |

Jane Porter

A sincere acquaintance with ourselves teaches us humility; and from humility springs that benevolence which compassionates the transgressors we condemn, and prevents the punishments we inflict from themselves partaking of crime, in being rather the wreaking of revenge than the chastisements of virtue.

Acquaintance | Benevolence | Character | Crime | Humility | Revenge | Virtue | Virtue |

Alexander Pope

To be angry is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.

Character | Fault | Revenge | Fault |

Norman F. Dixon

The apportioning of blame [is] the means by which society obtains a modicum of revenge for the wrong it has suffered, expiates its own guilt for such responsibility as it may have had for the event in question, and finally seeks to prevent a repetition of the disaster.

Blame | Guilt | Means | Question | Responsibility | Revenge | Society | Wrong | Society |

Leonard Felder

The process of forgiveness allows you to turn your heart toward healing, release, and compassion instead of using your energy for revenge or punishment. Forgiveness allows you to build something positive in the present while still making sure not to repeat what happened in the past.

Compassion | Energy | Forgiveness | Heart | Past | Present | Punishment | Revenge | Forgiveness |

Sacha Guitry, fully Alexandre-Pierre Georges "Sacha" Guitry

When a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

Better | Man | Revenge | Wife |

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger

Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response. Expelled from individual consciousness by the rush of change, history finds its revenge by stamping the collective unconscious with habits, values, expectations, dreams. The dialectic between past and future will continue to form our lives.

Change | Consciousness | Dreams | Future | History | Individual | Memory | Myth | Past | Revenge | Science | Technology | Tradition | Will |