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

Samson Raphael Hirsch

A Whole combination of knowledge, insight, abilities and skills as well as moral virtue and spiritual excellence, make up the art of the wifely home-builder.

Art | Character | Excellence | Insight | Knowledge | Virtue | Virtue | Art |

Roy M. Goodman

Good nature is the very air of a good mind; the sign of a large and generous soul, and the peculiar soil in which virtue prospers.

Character | Good nature | Good | Mind | Nature | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |

Benjamin R. Haydon

No man, perhaps, is so wicked as to commit evil for its own sake. Evil is generally committed under the hope of some advantage the pursuit of virtue seldom obtains. Yet the most successful result of the most virtuous heroism is never without its alloy.

Character | Evil | Hope | Man | Virtue | Virtue |

Rollo C. Hester

In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning.

Character | Cleanliness | Confidence | Courtesy | Discipline | Enthusiasm | Health | Honesty | Initiative | Inspiration | Joy | Modesty | Patience | Perseverance | Power | Simplicity | Struggle | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Privilege | Value |

Robert Hall

Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little - diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God’s mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness.

Blessings | Character | Ends | Faith | God | Greatness | Little | Looks | Right | Time | Wrong | Infidelity |

Francis Bret Harte

Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.

Character | Patience | Time | Will |

Heinrich Heine

Whether a revolution succeeds or miscarries, men of great hearts will always be its victims.

Character | Men | Revolution | Will |

Adam Hochschild

Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.

Character | Time | Work |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Deliverance is out of time into eternity, and is achieved by obedience and docility to the eternal Nature of Things. We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a “state of grace.” All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine Reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it.

Character | Docility | Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Free will | Grace | Nature | Obedience | Order | Power | Reality | Self | Spirit | Time | Will |

Thomas Jefferson

Without virtue happiness cannot be.

Character | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Karma is the causal sequence in time, from which we are delivered solely by “dying to” the temporal self and becoming united with the eternal, which is beyond time and cause.

Cause | Character | Eternal | Self | Time |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The human species... capacity for good is infinite, since they can, they desire, make room within themselves for divine Reality. But at the same time their capacity for evil is, not indeed infinite (since evil is always ultimately self-destructive and therefore temporary), but uniquely great. Hell is total separation from God, and the devil is the will to that separation... To be diabolic on the grand scale, one must, like Milton’s Satan, exhibit in a high degree all the moral virtues, except only charity and wisdom.

Capacity | Character | Charity | Desire | Devil | Evil | God | Good | Hell | Reality | Satan | Self | Time | Will | Wisdom |

David Hume

The distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason.

Character | Distinction | Reason | Virtue | Virtue | Vice |

David Hume

Vanity is so closely allied to virtue and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.

Character | Fame | Love | Virtue | Virtue |

William James

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue leaves its ever-so-little scar.

Character | Evil | Good | Little | Virtue | Virtue |

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Committing to a dream is not a one-time occurrence. They must be done daily, hourly, continually. We must choose to commit to our choice, over and over... And the time to commit is now. And now. And now. And now. And now.

Character | Choice | Time |

Huang Po, also Huángbò Xīyùn

Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, actions, ignorance, or knowledge. In it there are no things, no people, and no Buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price.

Absolute | Beauty | Character | Delusion | Doubt | Enlightenment | Ignorance | Knowledge | Learning | Nature | Nothing | People | Price | Reality | Self | Space | Teach | Time | Truth | Universe |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.

Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |