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

Posidonius, aka Posidonius of Rhodes or Posidonius of Apameia (meaning "of Poseidon") NULL

A single day in the life of a learned man is worth more than the lifetime of a fool.

Character | Day | Life | Life | Man | Worth |

Alexander Pope

There needs but thinking right and meaning well.

Character | Meaning | Right | Thinking |

Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |

Barthold Niebuhr, fully Barthold Georg Neibuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.

Character | Faith | Good | History | Hope | Love | Nothing | Sense | Worth |

Plautus, full name Titus Maccius Plautus NULL

Men understand the worth of blessings only when they have lost them.

Blessings | Character | Men | Worth | Understand |

Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Norris

The People have the right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not right that they be exploited and deceived with false views of life, false characters, false sentiment, false morality, false history, false philosophy, false emotions, false heroism, false notions of self-sacrifice, false views of religion , of duty, of conduct and manners.

Character | Conduct | Duty | Emotions | History | Liberty | Life | Life | Manners | Morality | People | Philosophy | Religion | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-sacrifice | Sentiment | Truth |

Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

Character | Duty | Eternal | Good | Grace | Heart | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Right | Soul | Truth |

Plotinus NULL

It is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the soul understands morality and right conduct: it learns them of its own nature, in its contact with itself, in its intellectual grasp of itself, seeing deeply impressed upon it the images of its primal state.

Character | Conduct | Morality | Nature | Right | Soul |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to save it.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Order | Right | Risk |

W. D. Ross, fully Sir William David Ross

No act is ever, in virtue of falling under some general description, necessarily actually right... moral acts often (as every one knows) and indeed always (on reflection we must admit) have different characteristics that tend to make them a the same time prima facie right and prima facie wrong; there is probably no act, for instance, which does good to anyone without doing harm to someone else, and vice versa.

Character | Good | Harm | Reflection | Right | Time | Virtue | Virtue | Wrong | Vice |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.

Character | Duty | Gratitude | Right |

Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

Freedom does not mean the right to do whatever we please, but rather to do whatever we ought... The right to do whatever we please reduces freedom to a physical power and forgets that freedom is a moral power.

Character | Freedom | Power | Right |

Roy L. Smith, aka Mr. Methodist

As a man grows older, he values the voice of experience more and the voice of prophecy less. He finds more of life's wealth in the common pleasures - home, health, children. He thinks more about worth of men and less about their wealth. He boasts less and boosts more. He hurries less, and usually makes more progress. He esteems the friendship of God a little higher.

Character | Children | Experience | God | Health | Life | Life | Little | Man | Men | Progress | Prophecy | Wealth | Worth | Friendship | God |

Samuel Smiles

To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to bear the wear and tear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count for much.

Character | Life | Life | Temptation | Work | World | Worth |