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

Leon Roth

Moral action is the meeting-place between the human and divine.

Action | Character |

Arthur Rimbaud, fully Jean-Nicolas-Arthur Rimbaud

I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain.”

Action | Character | Morality | Weakness |

Vita Sackville-West, fully The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson

Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of a man's life.

Action | Character | Life | Life | Man | Serenity | Spirit |

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, fully Field Marshal Sir William Joseph "Bill" Slim

When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder.

Action | Character | Mind |

William Gilmore Simms

Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.

Action | Better | Character | Corruption | Death |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.

Action | Character | Method | World |

Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford

Count the day lost, whose low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Action | Character | Day |

Tobias Smollett, fully Tobias George Smollett

True courage scorns to vent her prowess in a storm of words; and to the valiant action speaks alone.

Action | Character | Courage | Prowess | Words |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

When we have practiced good action awhile, they become easy; when they are easy, we take pleasure in them; when they please us, we do them frequently; and then, by frequency of act, they grow into a habit.

Action | Character | Good | Habit | Pleasure |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

There are not good things enough in life to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty.

Character | Duty | Enough | Good | Life | Life | Neglect |

Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Duties are not performed for duty’s sake, but because their neglect would make the man uncomfortable. A man performs but one duty - the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable with himself.

Character | Duty | Man | Neglect | Spirit |

John P. Webster

The chiefest action for a man of spirit is never to be out of action; the soul was never put into the body to stand still.

Action | Body | Character | Man | Soul | Spirit |

James R. Adams

Man is a creature of impulse, emotion, action rather than reason. Reason is a very late development in the world of living creatures, most of whom, as far as we know, get along admirably in daily life without it.

Action | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Reason | Wisdom | World |

H. W. Andrews

While an open mind is priceless, it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man unfit for a position of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where more and more of your decisions will be right. After all, it is better to be right 51 percent of the time and get something done, than it is to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision.

Action | Better | Consideration | Courage | Decision | Experience | Failure | Fear | Habit | Judgment | Man | Mind | Nothing | Position | Question | Responsibility | Right | Time | Will | Wisdom | Failure |