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

Mateo Alemán, fully Mateo Alemán y de Enero

That poverty which is not the daughter of the spirit is but the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is a man’s greatest foe.

Character | Daughter | Evil | Good | Man | Mother | Poverty | Shame | Spirit |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Once thing here is worth a great deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition even to liars and unjust men.

Character | Justice | Life | Life | Men | Truth | Worth |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Your disposition will be suitable to that which you most frequently think on; for the soul is, as it were, tinged with the color and complexion of its own thoughts.

Character | Soul | Will | Think |

Hugh Blair

The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior; it is social, kind, cheerful; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal disposition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and dejects the spirit.

Behavior | Character | Gentleness | Religion | Spirit | Temper |

Stefano Guazzo

The disposition of the mynd followeth the complexion of the body.

Body | Character |

Harry Graham, Fully Jocelyn Henry Clive 'Harry' Graham

Though the noblest disposition you inherit, And your character with piety is pack'd, All such qualities have very little merit unaccompanied by Tact.

Character | Little | Merit | Piety | Qualities | Tact |

David Hume

Human happiness seems to consists in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.

Action | Character | Indolence | Pleasure | Happiness |

Ferdinand Lassalle

A man's disposition is his destiny.

Character | Destiny | Man |

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Age, when it does not harden the heart and sour the temper, naturally returns to the milky disposition of infancy. Time as the same effect upon the mind as on the face. The predominant passion, the strongest feature, becomes more conspicuous from the others retiring.

Age | Character | Heart | Infancy | Mind | Passion | Temper | Time |

Jacques Maritain

Since man is endowed with intelligence and determines his own ends, it is up to him to put himself in tune with the ends necessarily demanded by his nature. This means that there is, by very virtue of human nature, an order or a disposition which human reason can discover and according to which the human will must act in order to attune itself to the necessary ends of the human being. The unwritten law, or natural law, is nothing more than that.

Character | Ends | Human nature | Intelligence | Law | Man | Means | Nature | Nothing | Order | Reason | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Edwin Percy Whipple

There is natural disposition with us to judge an author’s personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.

Antithesis | Character | Good | Man | Understand |

Carl Victor de Bonstetten

The habit of reflecting gives an inner life, which all that we see animates and embellishes. In this disposition of the soul everything becomes an object of thought.

Habit | Life | Life | Object | Soul | Thought | Wisdom |

Jamake Highwater

Art is a staple of mankind - never a by-product of elitism. So urgent, so utterly linked with the pulse of feeling that it becomes the singular sing of life when every other aspect of civilization fails... Like hunger and sex, it is a disposition of the human cell - a marvelous fiction of the brain which recreates itself as something as mysterious as mind. Art is consistent with every aspect of every day in the life of every people.

Art | Civilization | Day | Hunger | Life | Life | Mankind | Mind | People | Wisdom | Art |

Richard Hooker

It is of things heavenly and universal declaration, working in them whose hearts God inspireth with the due consideration thereof, and habit or disposition of mind whereby they are made fit vessels both for the receipt and delivery of whatsoever spiritual perfection.

Consideration | God | Habit | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | God |

William Dean Howells

The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.

God | Property | Satan | Wisdom |

Felix Neff

When a pump is frequently used, the water pours out at the first stroke, because it is high; but, if the pump has not been used for a long time, the water gets low, and when you want it you must pump a long while; and the water comes only after great efforts. It is so with prayer. If we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray, and desire and words are always ready; but, if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the well gets low.

Desire | Little | Neglect | Prayer | Time | Wisdom | Words | Circumstance |