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

Russell Green

The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.

Despise | Education | Wealth |

Samuel Goldwyn

I think luck is the sense to recognize an opportunity and the ability to take advantage of it. Everyone has bad breaks, but everyone also has opportunities. The man who can smile at his breaks and grab his chances gets on.

Ability | Luck | Man | Opportunity | Sense | Smile | Luck | Think |

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

We pierce doors and windows to make a house; and it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the usefulness of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the usefulness of what is not.

Nothing | Usefulness |

Mao Tse-tung, alternatively Zedong, Ze dong, aka Chairman Mao

Maneuvering for petty advantage is short-sighted.

Frank Edward Peretti

The measure of a man is not his strength; it is the depth of his nobility. The measure of any person is how he or she treats those who are less gifted, less intelligent, and less able. The measure of a Christian is how willing he or she is to reach down and help those who are less fortunate -- to take the strength and advantage they have to help those who have not.

Man | Nobility | Strength |

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Reason provides a means of escaping from the constraints of belief-systems backed by authority and from the resentment which clever people feel at the power of their own passions. Because reason--in admittedly varying degrees--is available to everybody, it has a potential advantage over the truth you feel and the truth you are told.

Authority | Belief | Means | People | Power | Reason | Resentment | Truth |

Aeschylus NULL

There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls. There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.

Fear | Good | Heart | Pain | Wisdom |

Adam Smith

The time and study, the genius, knowledge, and application requisite to qualify an eminent teacher of the sciences, are at least equal to what is necessary for the greatest practitioners in law and physic. But the usual reward of the eminent teacher bears no proportion to that of the lawyer or physician... The inequality is upon the whole, perhaps, rather advantageous than hurtful to the public. It may somewhat degrade the profession of a public teacher; but the cheapness of literary education is surely an advantage which greatly overbalances this trifling inconveniency.

Education | Genius | Inequality | Knowledge | Law | Public | Reward | Study | Time | Teacher |

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

Money, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it.

Money |

Blaise Pascal

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. the universe knows none of this. Thus all our dignity consists in thought. It is on thought that we must depend for our recovery, not on space and time, which we could never fill. Let us then strive to think well; that is the basic principle of morality.

Dignity | Enough | Kill | Man | Morality | Nature | Need | Space | Thinking | Thought | Time | Universe | Think | Thought |

Charles Caleb Colton

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

Age | Future | Happy | Men | Past | Present | Time |

Chinese Proverbs

Endure a small insult and be safe from a big insult; suffer some small loss and be safe from a big loss. When you miss an advantage in a deal, you gain an advantage.

Insult | Safe | Insult | Loss |

Francis Bacon

Some men think that the gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge; some the love of fame; some the pleasure of dispute; some the necessity of supporting themselves by their knowledge; but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man.

Curiosity | Dispute | Fame | God | Knowledge | Love | Man | Men | Necessity | Pleasure | Reason | God | Think |

George Bernard Shaw

It is easy - terribly easy - to shake a man's faith in himself. to take advantage of that is to break a man's spirit is devil's work.

Devil | Faith | Man | Spirit | Work |

Hannah More

Since trifles make the sum of human things, and half our misery from our foibles springs; since life’s best joys consist in peace and ease, and few can save or serve, but all may please; Oh! let th’ ungentle spirit learn from hence a small unkindness is a great offense, large bounties to restore we wish in vain, but all may shun the guilt of giving pain.

Giving | Guilt | Life | Life | Offense | Pain | Peace | Spirit | Trifles | Unkindness | Learn |

Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?

Life | Life | Magnanimity | Man | Object | Sincerity | Truth |