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

Lewis H. Lapham

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.

Aggression | Business | Conduct | Destroy | People | Society | Society |

Louis D. Brandeis, fully Louis Dembitz Brandeis

In the field of modern business, so rich in opportunity for the exercise of man's finest and most varied mental faculties and moral qualities, mere money-making cannot be regarded as the legitimate end... since with the conduct of business human happiness or misery is inextricably interwoven.

Business | Conduct | Man | Money | Opportunity | Qualities | Business | Happiness |

Joseph Stalin, fully Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, born Loseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili

He who wishes to lead a movement must conduct a fight on two fronts – against those who lag behind and those who rush ahead.

Conduct | Wishes |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The most learned men have told us that only the wise man is free. What is freedom but the ability to live as one will? The man who lives as he wills is none other than the one who strives for the right, who does his duty, who plans his life with forethought, and who obeys the laws because he knows it is good for him, and not out of fear. Everything he says, does, or thinks is spontaneous and free. His tasks and conduct begin and end in himself, because nothing has so much influence over him as his own counsel and decision. Even the supreme power of fortune is submissive to him. The wise poet has reminded us that fortune is molded for each man by the manner of his life. Only the wise man does nothing against his will, or with regret and by compulsion. Thought this truth deserves to be discussed at greater length, it is nevertheless proverbial that no one is free except the wise. Evil men are nothing but slaves.

Ability | Conduct | Counsel | Decision | Duty | Evil | Fear | Forethought | Fortune | Freedom | Good | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Men | Nothing | Power | Regret | Right | Thought | Truth | Will | Wills | Wise | Counsel | Thought |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

Probabilities direct the conduct of the wise man.

Conduct | Man | Wise |

Matthew Arnold

The object of religion is conduct; and conduct is really, however men may overlay it with philosophical disquisitions, the simplest thing in the world. That is to say, it is the simplest thing in the world as far as understanding is concerned; as regards doing, it is the hardest thing in the world.

Conduct | Men | Object | Religion | Understanding | World |

Michael S. Josephson

Though the ethical challenges we face in the workplace may be different from those in our personal lives, the principles of ethical conduct that apply to those challenges do not change. There is no such thing as business ethics - there is only ethics.

Business | Change | Conduct | Ethics | Principles | Business |

Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber

To attain... self confidence, intense worldly activity is recommended as the most suitable means. It and it alone disperses religious doubts and gives the certainty of grace.. The moral conduct of the average man was thus deprived of its planless and unsystematic character and subjected to a consistent method for conduct as a whole.

Character | Conduct | Confidence | Grace | Man | Means | Method | Self |

Napoleon Hill

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room from the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

Conduct | Doubt | Law | Will | Wrong |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas - that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.

Better | Competition | Conduct | Fighting | Good | Ideas | Men | Power | Thought | Time | Truth | Wishes | Thought |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let me consider this as a resolution by which I pledge myself to act in all variety of circumstances and to which I must recur often in times of carelessness and temptation – to measure my conduct by the rule of conscience.

Circumstances | Conduct | Conscience | Resolution | Rule | Temptation | Temptation |

Talmud or The Talmud NULL

You must know that ethical conduct is inspired neither by hope of reward nor fear of punishment. It stems solely from the love of God and the desire to do His commandments.

Conduct | Desire | Fear | God | Hope | Love | Punishment | Reward | God |

William Law

Perfection does not consist in any singular state or condition of life, or in any particular set of duties, but in holy and religious conduct of ourselves in every state of Life.

Conduct | Life | Life | Perfection |

Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL

Philosopher, lover of wisdom, that is to say, of truth. All philosophers have had this dual character; there is not one in antiquity who has not given mankind examples of virtue and lessons in moral truths. They have all contrived to be deceived about natural philosophy; but natural philosophy is so little necessary for the conduct of life, that the philosophers had no need of it. It has taken centuries to learn a part of nature’s laws. One day was sufficient for a wise man to learn the duties of man.

Antiquity | Character | Conduct | Day | Life | Life | Little | Man | Mankind | Nature | Need | Philosophy | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Wise | Learn |

Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson

No man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother, how he can assist his friend, how he can enlighten mankind, how he can make virtue the rule of conduct in the circle in which he lives.

Conduct | Friend | Man | Mankind | Rule | Virtue | Virtue | Think |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.

Accident | Conduct | Ignorance | Knowledge | Right |

Dugald Stewart

What we call good sense in the conduct of life consists chiefly in that temper of mind which enables its possessor to view at all times, with perfect coolness and accuracy, all the various circumstances of his situation: so that each of them may produce its due impression on him, without any exaggeration arising from his own peculiar habits. But to a man of an ill-regulated imagination, external circumstances only serve as hints to excite his own thoughts, and the conduct he pursues has in general far less reference to his real situation than to some imaginary one in which he conceives himself to be placed: in consequence of which, while he appears to himself to be acting with the most perfect wisdom and consistency, he may frequently exhibit to others all the appearances of folly.

Accuracy | Circumstances | Conduct | Consistency | Exaggeration | Folly | Good | Imagination | Impression | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Sense | Temper | Wisdom |

Edward Bernays, fully Edward Louis Bernays

In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

Conduct | Control | Politics | Public | Old | Understand |