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

Thomas Chalmers

Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. :You must go to the poor man’s cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.

Benevolence | Business | Character | Duty | Experience | Gentleness | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Men | Music | Poetry | Simplicity | Truth | Will | Business |

Walter Savage Landor

There is no eloquence which does not agitate the soul.

Character | Soul |

James Russell Lowell

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm, eloquence produces conviction for the moment; but it is only by truth to Nature and the everlasting institutions of mankind that those abiding influences are won that enlarge from generation to generation.

Character | Enthusiasm | Mankind | Nature | Truth |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.

Discretion | Need | Nothing | Silence | 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 |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.

Ambition | Avarice | Birth | Curiosity | Falsehood | Flattery | Philosophy | Pride | Superstition | Wisdom |

Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL

Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a rain of eloquence and knowledge; when the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body.

Body | Hunger | Knowledge | Spirit | Wisdom |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

The greatest wisdom seems like stupidity. The greatest eloquence like stuttering. Movement overcomes cold, but staying overcomes heat. So he by his limpid calm puts everything right under heaven.

Heaven | Right | Stupidity | Wisdom |

Frederick William Faber

Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence or learning.

Kindness | Learning | Zeal |

Charles Caleb Colton

Conversation is the music of the mind, an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should play together. Each of the performers should have a just appreciation of his own powers, otherwise an unskillful novice who might usurp the first fiddle, would infallibly get into a scrape. To prevent these mistakes, a good master of the band will be very particular in the assortment of the performers; if too dissimilar, there will be no harmony, if too few, there will be no variety; and, if too numerous, there will be no order, for the presumption of one prater, might silence the eloquence of a Burke, or the wit of a Sheridan, as a single kettle-drum would drown the finest solo of a Gionowich or a Jordini.

Appreciation | Conversation | Good | Harmony | Mind | Music | Order | Play | Presumption | Silence | Will | Wit | Appreciation |

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.

William Hazlitt

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

William Rounseville Alger

False eloquence is exaggeration, true eloquence is emphasis.

Exaggeration |

Edgar Allan Poe

There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm.

Heinrich Heine

True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.

Nothing |