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

Pierre Louis Roederer

True purity of taste is a quality of the mind; it is a feeling which can, with little difficulty, be acquired by the refinement of intelligence; whereas purity of manners is the result of wise habits, in which all the interests of the soul are mingled and in harmony with the progress of intelligence. That is why the harmony of good taste and of good manners is more common than the existence of taste without manners, or of manners without taste.

Character | Difficulty | Existence | Good | Harmony | Intelligence | Little | Manners | Mind | Progress | Purity | Refinement | Soul | Taste | Wise |

George Ripley

There are hosts of men, of the profoundest thought, who find nothing in the disclosures of science to shake their faith in the eternal virtues of reason and religion.

Character | Eternal | Faith | Men | Nothing | Reason | Religion | Science | Thought |

Francis Quarles

Knowledge descries; wisdom applies.

Character | Knowledge | Wisdom |

Gabriel Riesser

May those who represent advanced views bear in mind that true wisdom is always joined with mildness, that malice never converts the erring but strengthens him in his attitude, and that it is very unfitting to combat error (so long as this does not assume the aspect of injustice) with the weapons of hatred.

Character | Error | Malice | Mind | Weapons | Wisdom |

Francis Quarles

If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father’s vices; thou canst not rebuke that in children that they behold practiced in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts; such as thy behavior is before they children’s faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents backs.

Behavior | Character | Children | Desire | Father | Parents | Reason | Rebuke | Child |

Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen

The principal reason for sex deification is loss of belief in God. Once men lose God, they lose the purpose of life; and when the purpose of living is forgotten, the universe becomes meaningless. Man then tries to forget his emptiness in the intensity of a momentary experience.

Belief | Character | Experience | God | Life | Life | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Universe | Loss |

Sir G. Sinclair

Man has evil as well as good qualities peculiar to himself. Drunkenness places him as much below the level of the brutes as reason elevates him above them.

Character | Evil | Good | Man | Qualities | Reason |

Charles Seymour

Consideration is not merely a matter of emotional goodwill but of intellectual vigor and moral self-sacrifice. Wisdom must combine with sympathy. That is why consideration underlies the phrase "a scholar and a gentleman," which really sums up the ideal of the output of a college education.

Character | Consideration | Education | Sacrifice | Scholar | Self | Self-sacrifice | Sympathy | Wisdom |

Pooja Natarajan

To achieve something great in the world you need Passion To fulfill vision, a great leader’s courage comes from Passion Whatever it may be, you must find your Passion If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins Follow your passion and success will follow you! Never underestimate the power of passion Without passion religion is spiritless Without Passion history is meaningless Without Passion art is useless Follow your passion and success will follow you! When you take up a mission with passion There are no dreams too large No innovation unimaginable No frontiers beyond reach Follow your passion and success will follow you! Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel Our reason is the pilot that steers her Without winds the vessel would not move Without a pilot she would be lost Follow your passion and success will follow you! There is no end and there is no beginning There is only the passion of life Passion is universal humanity Passion is the genesis of genius Follow your passion and success will follow you!

Art | Character | Courage | Dreams | History | Innovation | Mission | Need | Passion | Power | Reason | Religion | Success | Will | World | Art |

Arthur Schnitzler

I trust your wisdom only when it comes from the heart, your goodness when it comes from the mind.

Character | Heart | Mind | Trust | Wisdom |

Sydney Smith

It is the calling of great men, not so much to preach new truths, as to rescue from oblivion those old truths which it is our wisdom to remember and our weakness to forget.

Character | Men | Oblivion | Weakness | Wisdom | Old | Truths |

Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne

Lessons of wisdom have never such power over us as when they are wrought in to the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions.

Character | Heart | Power | Story | Wisdom |