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

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.

Character | Falsehood | Integrity | Man | Nothing | Reputation | Truth | Will |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

He who is sincere has the easiest task in the world, for, truth being always consistent with itself, he is put to no trouble about his words and actions; it is like traveling on a plain road, which is sure to bring you to your journey's end better than byways in which many lose themselves.

Better | Character | Journey | Truth | Words | World | Trouble |

Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

If there is an evil in this world, it is sorrow and heaviness of heart. The loss of goods, of healthy, of coronets and mitres, is only evil as they occasion sorrow; take that out, the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.

Character | Evil | Heart | Man | Rest | Sorrow | World | Loss |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye.

Character | Friend | Nothing | Silence |

John Greenleaf Whittier

There's life alone in duty done, and rest alone in striving.

Character | Duty | Life | Life | Rest |

Berthold Auerbach

What people will say - in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere.

People | Tyranny | Vision | Will | Wisdom | Words | World |

Alexander Woollcott

Character is made by what you stand for; reputation by what you fall for.

Character | Reputation |

Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe

You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.

Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |

Rabbi Akiva, fully Rebbe Akiva ben Yosef NULL

Whatsoever is hateful unto thee, do it not unto thy neighbor. This is the whole of the Torah, the rest is but commentary.

Rest | Wisdom |

John Greenleaf Whittier

For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."

Character | Words |

Antisthenes NULL

The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.

Beginning | Education | Meaning | Wisdom | Words |

Vicksburg Whig, also called Vicksburg Weekly Whig, Weekly Whig

With temper calm and mild, and words of soften’d tone, he overthrows his neighbor’s cause and justifies his own.

Cause | Character | Temper | Words |