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

Walter Bagehot

An inability to stay quiet... is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

Character | Mankind | Quiet | Wisdom |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

Do you wish to find out a person's weak points? Note the failings he has the quickest eye for in others.

Character |

Yehoshua Heller

A person not aware of his faults and failings will not work on self-improvement. But if he overexaggerates the extent of his negative qualities and behavior, he will become discouraged and his discouragement will prevent him from improving.

Behavior | Character | Improvement | Qualities | Self | Self-improvement | Will | Work |

Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.

Character | Fault | Looks | Man | Means | Misfortune | Misfortune |

Publilius Clodius Thrasea Paetus (sometimes inverted Paetus Thrasea)

He who hates vice hates men. [hate [moral] failings and you hate people]

Character | Hate | Men | Wisdom | Vice |

Georges Cuvier, fully Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier

Those who devote themselves to the peaceful study of nature have but little temptation to launch out upon the tempestuous sea of ambition; they will scarcely be hurried away by the more violent or cruel passions, the ordinary failings of those ardent persons who do not control their conduct; but, pure as the objects of their researches, they will feel for everything about them the same benevolence which they see nature display toward all her productions.

Ambition | Benevolence | Conduct | Control | Display | Little | Nature | Study | Temptation | Will | Wisdom | Temptation |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

If a man attack his own failings instead of those of others, will he not remedy his personal faults?

Man | Will |

Jan Phillips

Committing to our creativity is an act of faith, a promise that we will keep at it despite our fears and failings and despite whatever obstacles we find in our paths.

Creativity | Faith | Promise | Will |

Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Great merit or great failings will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.

Little | Merit | People | Trifles | Will | World |

Jean Vanier

It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.

Life | Life |

Jean-Pierre Camus de Pontcarré

The great imperfection of most of us proceeds from want of reflection, but, on the other hand, there are many who think overmuch, who fall into the mistake of too close self-inspection, and who are perpetually fretting over their failings and weaknesses.

Imperfection | Mistake | Think |

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Such is the force of envy and ill-nature, that the failings of good men are more published to the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a well-deserving man shall meet with more reproaches than all his virtues will with praise.

Envy | Fault | Force | Good | Man | Men | Will | World | Fault |

Nikola Tesla

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

Force | Man |

Pierre Nicole

When we hide our failings from others, we seek to hide them from ourselves, and it is in the latter attempt that we are most successful.

Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL

Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.

Public |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Friendship is a union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond there of virtue.

Similitude |

Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps

It is better in some respects to be admired by those with whom you live, than to be loved by them. And this is not on account of any gratification of vanity, but because admiration is so much more tolerant than love.

Error | Giving | Man | Mistake | Rest |

Thomas Merton

They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it.

Feelings | God | Impatience | Important | Poverty | Resentment | Time | God |