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

Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, aka Maggid of Mezeritch

I cannot teach you the ten principles of service. But a little child and a thief can show you what they are. From the child you can learn three things: He is merry for no particular reason; never for a moment is he idle; when he needs something, he demands it vigorously. The thief can instruct you in seven things: He does his service by night; if he does not finish what he has set out to do, in one night, he devotes the next night to it; he and those who work with him love one another; he risks his life for small gains; what he takes has so little value for him that he gives it up for a very small coin; he endures blows and hardship, and it matters nothing to him; he likes his trade and would not exchange it for any other.

Character | Life | Life | Little | Love | Nothing | Principles | Reason | Service | Teach | Work | Child | Learn | Value |

Thomas Adams

An ounce of discretion is worth a pound of learning.

Character | Discretion | Learning | Worth |

Rabbi Avraham of Sochotchov NULL

Life is something you measure not in years but in precious moments - and in how you value those moments. The responsibility for making such moments meaningful is yours alone. There are no definitions of failure or success except the ones you specify for yourself. You are the meaning of your own life.

Character | Failure | Life | Life | Meaning | Responsibility | Success | Failure | Value |

Isaac Barrow

Nothing of worth or weight can be achieved with half a mind, with a faint heart, and with a lame endeavor.

Character | Heart | Mind | Nothing | Worth |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

Character | Man | Men | Opinion | Rest | Value |

Samuel Alexander

Though religion... always envelops conduct, the sentiment of religion and the sense of moral value are distinct.

Character | Conduct | Religion | Sense | Sentiment | Value |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

The one thing worth living for is to keep one's soul pure.

Character | Soul | Wisdom | Worth |

Francis Ellington Abbot

Just as a tested and rugged virtue of the moral hero is worth more than the lovely, tender, untried innocence of the child, so is the massive strength of a soul that has conquered truth for itself worth more than the soft peach-bloom faith of a soul that takes truth on trust.

Character | Faith | Hero | Innocence | Soul | Strength | Trust | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |

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 |

R. D. Blackmore, fully Richard Doddridge Blackmore

An ounce of practice is worth a pound of precept.

Character | Practice | Precept | Worth |

Caroline Bird

A liberal-arts education is supposed to provide you with a value system, a standard, a set of ideas, not a job.

Character | Education | Ideas | System | Value |

Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch

Young people imagine there is great value in fame. Those with life experience know that in truth publicity is extremely short-lived. The nature of the world is that every piece of news makes an impression for only a very short time. After those few minutes the impression is erased and quickly forgotten. It is as if it never was.

Character | Experience | Fame | Impression | Life | Life | Nature | News | People | Time | Truth | World | Value |

Jean de La Bruyère

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.

Character | Men | Value |

Alice Cary

True worth is in being, not seeming.

Character | Worth |

William Ellery Channing

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people’s energy, intellect and virtues.

Character | Energy | Freedom | People | Worth | Intellect |

William Ellery Channing

I see nothing worth living for but the divine virtue which endures and surrenders all things for truth, duty, and mankind.

Character | Duty | Mankind | Nothing | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Worth |