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

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.

Action | Aid | Cause | Crime | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Sydney Smith

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

Calamity | Courage | Order | Wisdom | Calamity |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Action | Good | Inevitable | Wisdom |

William Howard Taft

Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.

Action | Majority | People | Respect | Rights | Self | Wisdom | Respect |

Ralph Waldo Trine

He who remains cheerful in spirit and sees only the good side of all things, who never allows himself to be spiritually downcast but keeps his head high and courage in his heart, he sets in motion those fine, still powers, which make every step through life The more one loves the nearer he approaches to God, for God is the spirit of infinite love.

Courage | God | Good | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Spirit | Wisdom | God |

Book of Golden Precepts, aka The Book of Golden Precepts NULL

Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin.

Action | Mercy | Sin |

Dhyani Ywahoo

We can listen to the voice of the Earth as she shakes and sings her song expressing her tiredness. She is calling us to attention, to be alert, to recognize that now is the time to transform selfish thought and action to compassionate caretaking. Do we want a world of peace and harmony? Are we willing to make that peace within ourselves? Will we call it forth? It is your choice. Your thought and action make a difference.

Action | Attention | Choice | Earth | Harmony | Peace | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | World | Thought |

Edward Young

Cares are employments; and without employ the soul is on a rack; the rack of rest, to souls most adverse; action all their joy.

Action | Joy | Rest | Soul | Wisdom |

Jacob Bobart the Younger

Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.

Action | Day |

Erma Bombeck, fully Erma Louise Bombeck, born Erma Fiste

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

Courage | Dreams |

Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.

Action | Diversity | Good | Inquiry | Intention | Man | Right | Truth | Wisdom |

Carol Adrienne

Karma is a multidimensional complex of forces beyond any simple explanation. Karma is action. An action has consequences. Our identity comes from past actions, which create memories. Those memories create desires, which give rise to new choices and new actions.

Action | Consequences | Past |

Julian Baggini

Life’s meaning has to be found in the living of life itself, and the promise of eventual death is necessary to make any action worthwhile at all.

Action | Death | Life | Life | Meaning | Promise |

Michael E. Angier

Today’s action becomes tomorrow’s habit.

Action | Habit | Tomorrow |

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.

Action | Thought | Wisdom |