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

Albert Einstein

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.

Character | Self | Sense | Value |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Our life is determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us and doing what is given us to do.

Character | Life | Life | Mind | Think |

Albert Einstein

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.

Character | Day | Earth | Fate | Knowing | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mind | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Smile | Sympathy | Work | Fate | Happiness |

William Cowper

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, and as the mind is pitch’d, the ear is pleas’d with melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave; some chord in unison with what we hear is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.

Character | Grave | Heart | Mind | Sympathy |

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 |

Frederick Evan Crane

To make a man happy, fill his hands with work, his heart with affection, his mind with purpose, his memory with useful knowledge, his future with hope, and his stomach with food. The devil never enters a man except one of these rooms be vacant.

Character | Devil | Future | Happy | Heart | Hope | Knowledge | Man | Memory | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Work |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The Indians were religious from the first moments of life. From the moment of the mother’s recognition that she had conceived to the end of the child’s second year of life, which was the ordinary duration of lactation, it was supposed by us that the mother’s spiritual influence was supremely important. Her attitude and secret meditations must be such to instill into the receptive soul of the unborn child the love of the Great Mystery and a sense of connectedness with all creation. Silence and isolation are the rule of life for the expectant mother... Silence, love, reverence - this is the trinity of first lessons, and to these she later adds generosity, courage and chastity.

Character | Chastity | Courage | Generosity | Important | Influence | Isolation | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Mystery | Reverence | Rule | Sense | Silence | Soul | Child |

John Dewey

The whole history of science, art and morals proves that the mind that appears in individuals, is not as such individual mind. The former is in itself a system of belief, recognitions, and ignorances, of acceptances and rejections, of expectancies and appraisals of meanings which have been instituted under the influence of custom and tradition.

Art | Belief | Character | Custom | History | Individual | Influence | Mind | Science | System | Tradition | Art |

Charles de Saint-Évremond, fully Charles Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Évremond

A man knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them he rather finds a relaxation of mind than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.

Business | Character | Man | Mind | Will |

Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz

It is a wise man’s good sense to be slow to anger, and his glory to pass over a transgression.

Anger | Character | Glory | Good | Man | Sense | Wise |

Everett Dirksen, fully Everett McKinley Dirksen

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

Character | Compassion | Heart | Mind | Persuasion |

Tyron Edwards

Indolence is the dry rot of even a good mind and a good character; the practical uselessness of both. It is the waste of what might be a happy and useful life.

Character | Good | Happy | Indolence | Life | Life | Mind | Waste |

Morris Franklin

There is too much stress today on material things. I try to teach my children not so much the value of cents, but the sense of values.

Character | Children | Sense | Teach | Value |

Benjamin Franklin

To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it.

Character | Debt | Gratitude | Mind | Power |

Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine de Girardin, née Gay

Ennui is the rust of the mind born of idleness. It is unused tools that corrode.

Character | Ennui | Idleness | Mind |

Owen Feltham

The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. These for the most part be summed in these two - common sense and perseverance.

Character | Common Sense | Life | Life | Means | Perseverance | Qualities | Sense |

Owen Feltham

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.

Character | Man | Mind | Praise | Wise |