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

Frederika Bremer

People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next, they have had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they; then have to be careful not to mistrust every one, and to put the worst construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the greater number of men have much; more good in them than bad, and that even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than condemn; and then a spirit of confidence again awakens within them.

Blame | Cause | Confidence | Experience | Good | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mistrust | People | Pity | Reason | Spirit | Wisdom | Friendship | Learn |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

More helpful than all wisdom or counsel is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

Counsel | Pity | Will | Wisdom | Counsel |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Don’t let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

Awe | God | Pity | Punishment | Wisdom | God |

Johann Benjamin Michaelis

Be willing to pity the misery of the stranger! Thou givest to-day thy bread to the poor; to-morrow the poor may give it to thee.

Day | Pity | Wisdom |

Olin Miller

What a pity human beings can't exchange problems. Everyone knows exactly how to solve the other fellow's.

Pity | Problems | Wisdom |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

The world has no sympathy with any but positive griefs; it will pity you for what you lose, but never for what you lack.

Pity | Sympathy | Will | Wisdom | World |

Alan Cohen

All acts of charity or giving are valuable only inasmuch as they recognize the true dignity of those toward whom the contribution is directed. Any money or time given to another without recognizing their full equality, is as chaff in the wind, and serves only the mockery of the ego. Pity or sorrow is never a worthy reason for charity, for it only reinforces the bondage of the giver and the recipient. Real charity is never a giving, but always a sharing. He who gives as a giver remains half; he who shares, knows wholeness.

Charity | Dignity | Ego | Equality | Giving | Mockery | Money | Pity | Reason | Sorrow | Time | Wholeness |

Arthur W Osborn

There is an ecclesiastical cliché used in connection with candidates for the ministry. The candidates do not speak of seeking a job but of receiving a “call,” which in their language is from God. It is a euphemistic pleasantry which deceives no one. Nevertheless the conventional phraseology of being “called” is sometimes a psychological reality and represents an inner transformation and the prelude to a life of dedication. It is a pity that the same spirit is not more evident in the field of medicine. The phenomenon of inner urgency which draws us in one direction against rival interests stems from something deeper than a line of reasoning. Rather it is due to the type of person we are. This prompts us to inquire whether there is any purpose or pattern behind our having been born at all.

Dedication | God | Language | Life | Life | Pity | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Spirit |

Blaise Pascal

To pity the unhappy is not contrary to selfish desire; on the other hand, we are glad of the occupation to thus testify friendship and attract to ourselves the reputation of tenderness, without giving anything.

Desire | Giving | Occupation | Pity | Reputation | Tenderness | Friendship |

Charles Caleb Colton

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

Adversity | Fortune | Gratitude | Little | Man | Men | Pity | Reason | Revenge | Friends |

Charles Caleb Colton

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. Honors bestowed on the illustrious dead have in them no admixture of envy; for the living pity the dead; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not.

Envy | Pity | Praise |

Florida Scott-Maxwell

I wonder why love is so often equated with joy when it is everything else as well. Devastation, balm, obsession, granting and receiving excessive value, and losing it again. It is recognition, often of what you are not but might be. It sears and it heals. It is beyond pity and above law. It can seem like truth.

Joy | Law | Love | Obsession | Pity | Truth | Wonder |

Eric Hoffer

The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.

Conscience | Contempt | Hate | Pity | Punishment | Self | Silence | Guilty |

French Proverbs

When a blind man bears the standard, pity those who follow.

Man | Pity |