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

Shelagh Delaney

Think all you speak, but speak not all you think. Thoughts are your own; your words are so no more.

Wisdom | Words |

Adam Clarke

It is strictly and philosophically true in Nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent ore the cause of any event; but they signify merely men’s ignorance of the real and immediate cause.

Accident | Cause | Chance | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Reason | Wisdom | Words |

Arthur Cleveland Coxe

Flowers are words which even a babe may understand.

Wisdom | Words |

Saint Columbanus, aka Saint Columbanus of Bobbio NULL

Reprove the wise: your words will bring you thanks.

Will | Wisdom | Wise | Words |

Albert Einstein

I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.

Children | Courage | Example | Good | Man | Prejudice | Will | Wisdom | Words | Think |

Favorinus, aka Favorinus of Arelata NULL

Live, if you wish, according to the manners of the past, but speak the language of the present.

Language | Manners | Past | Present | Wisdom |

William Enfield, aka "The Enquirer"

Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external possessions, but from wisdom, which consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue; that the cultivation of virtuous manners is necessarily attended with pleasure as well as profit; that the honest man alone is happy; and that it is absurd to attempt to separate things which are in nature so closely united as virtue and interest.

Absurd | Cultivation | Happy | Knowledge | Man | Manners | Nature | Pleasure | Possessions | Practice | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault

The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them.

Wisdom | Words | World | Understand |

Benjamin Franklin

I develop the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any other that give the air of positiveness to an opinion, but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so: It appear to me or should not think it, so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so, or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit I believe has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinion and persuade men into measures that I have been, time to time, engaged in promoting.

Habit | Men | Opinion | Time | Wisdom | Words | Think |

Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna or by his Hebrew acronym Gra ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu")

When you lead your sons and daughters in the good way, let your words be tender and caressing, in terms of disciplines that win the heart's assent.

Good | Heart | Wisdom | Words |

Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine de Girardin, née Gay

The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory, and to save an empire.

Change | Defeat | Power | Wisdom | Words |

Benjamin Franklin

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

Manners | Wisdom |

Gersonides, abbreviation of first letters as RalBaG from Levi ben Gerson NULL

By means of rational thought we have reached the opinion that God knows in advance only the possibilities open to a man in his freedom, not the particular decisions he will make.. It is the opinion of our religion that God never changes... and yet we find in the words of the prophets that God does repent over some things... It is impossible to solve this contradiction if we adopt the view that God knows particular things as particulars.

Contradiction | Freedom | God | Man | Means | Opinion | Religion | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | God | Thought |

Jean-Baptiste Girard

By words we learn thoughts, and by thoughts we learn life.

Life | Life | Wisdom | Words | Learn |

Hugh Reginald Haweis

Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone an rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.

Emotions | Eternal | Language | Music | Popularity | Sound | Will | Wisdom | Words |