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

Alan Cohen

All acts of charity or giving are valuable only inasmuch as they recognize the true dignity of those toward whom the contribution is directed. Any money or time given to another without recognizing their full equality, is as chaff in the wind, and serves only the mockery of the ego. Pity or sorrow is never a worthy reason for charity, for it only reinforces the bondage of the giver and the recipient. Real charity is never a giving, but always a sharing. He who gives as a giver remains half; he who shares, knows wholeness.

Charity | Dignity | Ego | Equality | Giving | Mockery | Money | Pity | Reason | Sorrow | Time | Wholeness |

Albert Camus

There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.

Dignity | Work |

Amos Bronson Alcott

Ideas, when vented in a book, carry with them a kind of dignity and certainty which awe many into implicit belief.

Awe | Belief | Dignity | Ideas |

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The dignity of the individual requires that he not be reduced to vassalage by the largesse of others.

Dignity | Individual |

Ben Jonson

The dignity of truth is lost with much protesting.

Dignity | Truth |

Blaise Pascal

All our dignity consists... in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.

Dignity | Morality | Space | Thought | Time | Think |

Blaise Pascal

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. the universe knows none of this. Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality.

Dignity | Enough | Kill | Man | Morality | Nature | Need | Space | Thinking | Thought | Time | Universe | Think | Thought |

Booker T. Washington, fully Booker Taliaferro Washington

No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Dignity | Race | Writing |

Charles Caleb Colton

In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here; to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves.

Difficulty | Dignity |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

“True men”… are strong willed, have dignity in their demeanor, serenity in their expression. They are cool like autumn, warm like spring. Their passions arise like the four seasons, in harmony with the ten thousand creatures, and no one knows their limits.

Demeanor | Dignity | Harmony | Men | Serenity |

Dag Hammarskjöld

The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.

Dignity | Indifference |

David Sarnoff

The final test of science is not whether it adds to our comfort, knowledge and power, but whether it adds to our dignity as men, our sense of truth.

Comfort | Dignity | Knowledge | Men | Power | Science | Sense | Truth |

Emma Goldman

The ultimate end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life, the dignity of man, the right of every human being to liberty and well-being.

Change | Dignity | Liberty | Life | Life | Man | Right |

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race and that all must rise and fall as one. Its creed will be justice, liberty, equality for all the children of earth.

Children | Creed | Dignity | Earth | Equality | Human nature | Justice | Liberty | Nature | Race | Religion | Teach | Will |

Francis Bacon

Men possessing minds which are morose, solemn, and inflexible enjoy generally a greater share of dignity than of happiness.

Dignity | Men |

George Santayana

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.

Dignity |