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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

One never finds life worth living. One always has to make it worth living.

Character | Life | Life | Worth |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

It seems not to be true that there is a power in the universe, which watches over the well-being of every individual with parental care and brings all his concerns to a happy ending. On the contrary, the destinies of man are incompatible with a universal principle of benevolence or with - what is to some degree contradictory - a universal principle of justice... Dark, unfeeling, and unloving powers determine human destiny; the system of rewards and punishments, which according to religion, governs the world, seems to have no existence.

Benevolence | Care | Character | Destiny | Existence | Happy | Individual | Justice | Man | Power | Religion | System | Universe | World |

William Ewart Gladstone

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.

Body | Character | Energy | Life | Life | Man | Wise | Work |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.

Character | Men | Wisdom | World |

Owen Feltham

There is no one subsists by himself alone.

Character |

Henry Ford

To do more for the world than the world does for you - that is success.

Character | Success | World |

E. M. Forster, fully Edward Morgan Forster

One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.

Character | Life | Life | People | Trust |

Benjamin Franklin

Education begins with life. Before we are aware the foundations of character are laid, and subsequent teaching avails but little to remove or alter them... If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Character | Education | Knowledge | Life | Life | Little | Man |

Benjamin Franklin

In dealings between man and man, truth, sincerity and integrity are of the utmost importance to the felicity of life.

Character | Integrity | Life | Life | Man | Sincerity | Truth |

Henry Giles

Friendship, like love, is self-forgetful. The only inequality is knows is one that exalts the object, and humbles self.

Character | Inequality | Love | Object | Self |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

One always has time enough if only one applies it well.

Character | Enough | Time |

Owen Feltham

No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.

Better | Character | Friend | Man | Patience | Will |

Owen Feltham

Fear, if it be not immoderate, puts a guard about us that does watch and defend us; but credulity keeps us naked, and lays us open to all the sly assaults of ill-intending men: it was a virtue when man was in his innocence; but since his fall, it abuses those that own it.

Character | Fear | Innocence | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue |

Avraham Shmuel Finkel

Through accepting suffering one can obtain much benefit. Suffering breaks a person’s arrogance and conceit. It leads him to humility and directs him to accept the sovereignty of the Almighty.

Arrogance | Character | Humility | Suffering |

Henry Ford

There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world’s ills will be cured.

Character | Money | Power | Will | World |

James William Fulbright

Of all the animals on earth, man has shown himself to be the most cruel and brutal. He is the only animal that will create instruments of death for his own destruction. Man is the only animal on all the earth that has ever been known to burn its young as a sacrifice to appease the wrath of some imaginary deity. He is the only one that will build homes, towns, and cities at such a cost in sacrifice and suffering and turn around and destroy them in war.

Character | Cost | Death | Destroy | Earth | Man | Sacrifice | Suffering | War | Will |

Harold Gwyer Garnett

The best teacher is... the one who kindles an inner fire, arouses moral enthusiasm, inspires the student with a vision of what he may become and reveals the worth and permanency of moral and spiritual and cultural values.

Character | Enthusiasm | Vision | Worth | Teacher |

J. Paul Getty, fully Jean Paul Getty

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or get rich in business by being a conformist.

Business | Character | Success | Business |