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

Eliyahu de Vidas,

When your property or possessions sustain some damage or loss, work on yourself to accept the Almighty’s judgment with love. Realize you were born without any belongings and you will eventually leave the world without belongings. You need not identify with your possessions since they are not an integral part of you.

Character | Judgment | Love | Need | Possessions | Property | Will | Work | World |

Abba Eban, born Aubrey Solomon Meir Eban

The vital force in business life is the honest desire to serve. Business, it is said, is the science of service. He profits most who serves best. At the very bottom of the wish to render service must be honesty of purpose, and, as I go along through life, I see more and more that honesty in word, thought, and work means success. It spells a life worth living and in business clean success.

Business | Character | Desire | Force | Honesty | Life | Life | Means | Purpose | Purpose | Science | Service | Success | Thought | Work | Worth | Business |

Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct.

Change | Character | Conduct | Heart | Repentance | Wisdom | Work |

George Crabbe

Wine is like anger; for it make us strong; blind and impatient; and leads us wrong; the strength is quickly lost; we feel the error long.

Anger | Character | Error | Strength | Wrong |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for a difficult or dangerous service, and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: “Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor.”

Ability | Character | Generosity | Honor | Labor | Price | Property | Reward | Sense | Service | Strength | Think |

Albert Einstein

Exaggerated respect for athletics, an excess of coarse impressions brought about by the technical discoveries of recent years, the increased severity of the struggle for existence due to the economic crisis, the brutalization of political life: all these factors are hostile to the ripening of the character and the desire for real culture, and stamp our age as barbarous, materialistic and superficial.

Age | Athletics | Character | Culture | Desire | Excess | Existence | Life | Life | Respect | Struggle | Respect |

Albert Einstein

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

Care | Character | God | Personality | Wisdom | Intellect |

Tyron Edwards

Give work rather than alms to the poor. The former drives out indolence, the latter industry. There are two kinds of charity, remedial and preventative. The former is often injurious in its tendency; the latter is always praiseworthy and beneficial.

Alms | Character | Charity | Indolence | Industry | Work |

William J. Donovan, fully William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan

Our moral strength is in ourselves, in our patience, in our courage, in our decision and in our resolution.

Character | Courage | Decision | Patience | Resolution | Strength |

M. V. Drake

When all our hopes are gone 'tis well our hands must still keep toiling on for others' sake. For strength to bear is found in duty alone, and he is blest indeed who learns to make the joy of others cure his own heartache.

Character | Duty | Joy | Strength |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character

Character | Dread | Man | Need | Work |

Albert Einstein

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

Beauty | Character | Duty | Influence | Joy | Opportunity | Regard | Spirit | Study | Work | Beauty | Learn |

James W. Elliot

Work is life and good work is good life.

Character | Good | Life | Life | Wisdom | Work |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

Character | Dignity | Originality | Struggle | Work |

Mike Gass, fully Michael A. Gass

What are the qualities of Life? It can be shared forever, but cannot be kept forever. When given to another, it brings great joy to all; when taken, the anguish for many is great. It is sometimes maintained by less than the thread of a string and sometimes lost despite the hopes of millions. Its frailty and end are obvious, but its strength and limits endless. So share your life with me while we are together so we can create that which will bring joy to others. When this life is over, let the meaning of our lives be found not on a list of accomplishments, but in the hearts and souls of the people with whom we shared our fragile existence. Let our lives not be measured by what we did for others, but by what we helped people do for themselves.

Character | Existence | Joy | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Qualities | Strength | Will |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.

Aims | Character | Labor | Man | Men | Respect | Wisdom | Wishes | World | Respect | Understand |

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 |

Henry Fielding

A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.

Character | Conscience | Good | Neglect | Will |

Ralph Tyler Flewelling

We live in an age to which self-restraint is hateful. Our emphasis is placed on achievement. Restraint without achievement is nothing, but achievement without restraint is worse.

Achievement | Age | Character | Nothing | Restraint | Self |