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

Josef Matthias Hauer

The man who listens is from the outset a spiritual being compared with the person who merely speaks, sees, and grasps. Hearing and taking in are spiritual activities: hearing the unchangeable, the untouchable, the incomprehensible, the constant, the eternal within the Melos. Only someone who listens can also recognize, interpret, think, speak, apprehend and comprehend.

Character | Eternal | Man | Wisdom |

Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

The only benefit of flattery is that by hearing what we are not, we may be instructed what we ought to be.

Character | Flattery |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

He is the greater friend whose censure heals than he whose flattery anoints the head.

Censure | Flattery | Friend | Wisdom |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

He whose ruling passion is the love of praise is a slave to everyone who has a tongue for flattery and calumny.

Calumny | Flattery | Love | Passion | Praise | Wisdom |

John Angell James

Let us never forget that, to be profited, that is, to be spiritually improved in knowledge, faith, holiness, joy and love, is the end of hearing sermons, and not merely to have our taste gratified by genius, eloquence and oratory.

Faith | Genius | Joy | Knowledge | Love | Oratory | Taste | Wisdom |

Groucho Marx, Pseudonym for Julius Henry Marx

One of the best hearing aids a man can have is an attentive wife.

Man | Wife | Wisdom |

Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports - the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth - they all deceive and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.

Books | Compassion | Flattery | Mind | Reflection | Retirement | Solitude | Strength | Wisdom | World | Friendship |

Samuel Butler

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.

People | Religion |

Samuel Butler

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

Fear |

Dhammapada NULL

Faith is wealth! Obedience is wealth! Modesty also is wealth! Hearing is wealth, and so is Charity! Wisdom is sevenfold riches.

Charity | Faith | Modesty | Obedience | Riches | Wealth | Wisdom |

Robbie Gass

Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.

Ability | Wisdom |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

The mischief of flattery is not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honor may be gained without the toil of merit.

Ambition | Flattery | Honor | Influence | Man | Merit | Opinion |

Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

There is no other way of guarding one’s self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect. A prudent prince must therefore take a third course, by choosing for his council wise men, and giving these alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else; but he must ask them about everything and hear their opinion, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way.

Flattery | Giving | Liberty | Men | Nothing | Opinion | Respect | Self | Truth | Will | Wise | Understand |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It is not [a child’s] hearing of the word, but its accompanying intonation that is understood.

Child |