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

W. C. Fields, stage name for William Claude Dukenfield

I never saw anything funny that wasn’t terrible. If it causes pain, it’s funny; if it doesn’t, it isn’t. I try to hide the pain with embarrassment, and the more I do that, the better they like it. But that does not mean they are unsympathetic. Oh no, they laugh often with tears in their eyes.

Better | Character | Pain | Tears |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power, that is all.

Character | Laughter | Power | Sensibility | Tears |

Zane Grey Orig. name Pearl Grey

To bear up under loss; to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; to be victor over anger, to smile when tears are close; to resist disease and evil men and base instincts; to hate hate and to love love; to go on when it would seem good to die; to look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be - that is what any man can do, and be great.

Anger | Bitterness | Character | Defeat | Disease | Evil | Faith | Good | Grief | Hate | Love | Man | Men | Smile | Tears | Weakness |

David Hume

Men are not blamed for such actions as they perform ignorantly and casually, whatever may be the consequences. Why? but because the principles of these actions are only momentary, and terminate in them alone. Men are less blamed for such actions as they perform hastily and unpremeditatedly than for such as proceed from deliberation. For what reason? but because a hasty temper, though a constant cause or principle in the mind, operates only by intervals, and infects not the whole character. Again, repentance wipes off every crime, if attended with a reformation of life and manners. How is this to be accounted for? but by asserting that actions render a person criminal merely a they are proofs of criminal principles in the mind.

Cause | Character | Consequences | Crime | Deliberation | Life | Life | Manners | Men | Mind | Principles | Reason | Repentance | Temper |

Frederick Dan Huntington

There’ll be no night in Heav’n, In that blest world above; No anxious toil, no weary hours; For labor there is love. There’ll be no sorrow there, There’ll be no sorrow there, In Heav’n above, where all is love, There’ll be no sorrow there. There’ll be no grief in Heav’n, For life is one glad day, And tears are those of former things Which all have passed way. There’ll be no sin in Heav’n; Behold that blessèd throng, All holy in their spotless robes, All holy in their song.

Action | Character | Conduct | Devotion | Faith | Good | Grief | Labor | Life | Life | Love | Sin | Sorrow | Suffering | Tears | Work | World | Blessed |

Holger Kalweit

The fool exposes the limitations of human criteria, confronts us anew with the undefined nature of our cosmic existence, leads us backstage to make us aware of the artificiality of our cultural values, and then shows us a world without limit, because it is neither categorized nor ordered in accordance with artificial opposites. The sick jester removes these opposites, tears down external and internal barriers and causes us to tumble head over heels from our tailor-made world of lines and demarcations into a more comprehensive and holistic dimension that has no beginning or end.

Beginning | Character | Existence | Nature | Tears | World |

Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

Nature, in giving tears to man, confessed that he had a tender heart: this is our noblest quality.

Character | Giving | Heart | Man | Nature | Tears |

William Nevins

He that waits for repentance waits for that which cannot be had as long as it is waited for. It is absurd for a man to wait for that which he himself has to do.

Absurd | Character | Man | Repentance |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Vice leaves repentance in the soul like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of repentance, which is so much the more grievous, by reason it springs within, as the cold and hot of fevers are more sharp than those that only strike upon the outward skin.

Character | Reason | Repentance | Soul |

Mordechai of Lekhivitz NULL

Repentance should be with joy. If repentance is sincere, the person will be joyful even though he is humble. If repentance is insincere, the person will be depressed and irritable and will react with anger toward people who speak with him.

Anger | Character | Joy | People | Repentance | Will |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

The aim that comedy has in view is the same as that of the highest destiny of man, and this consists in liberating himself from the influence of violent passions, and taking a calm and lucid survey of all that surrounds him, and also of his own being, and of seeing everywhere occurrence rather than fate or hazard, and ultimately rather smiling at the absurdities than shedding tears and feeling anger at sight of the wickedness of man.

Anger | Character | Comedy | Destiny | Fate | Hazard | Influence | Man | Tears | Wickedness | Fate |

Abba Hillel Silver

There is evil in the world, but it can be overcome through repentance and aspiration, and therein lies the true meaning and adventure in life.

Adventure | Aspiration | Character | Evil | Life | Life | Meaning | Repentance | World |

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

Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation; humility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we should suffer; the other calms us by the reminder that we deserve nothing else.

Anger | Character | Grief | Humility | Nothing | Pride | Tears |

Brooke Foss Westcott

No repentance on earth can undo the past.

Character | Earth | Past | Repentance |

Ralph Venning

Late repentance is seldom true, but true repentance is never too late.

Character | Repentance |