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

Bachya Ibn Pekudah

The earth we live on is so small that even if someone was honored by everyone on our planet it is still insignificant. Also, a person’s lifetime is so short that even if he received honor and approval his entire life, it is so short in comparison with eternity. This is the ultimate success an approval-seeker can hope for, but the reality is that even if you spend you entire life trying to win the approval of others, only a small number of people will know and approve of you. The approval you do gain lasts a very short time and is soon forgotten as if it never was.

Character | Earth | Eternity | Honor | Hope | Life | Life | People | Reality | Success | Time | Will | Approval |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Yet it may be asked how a man can be at once free and forced to conform to wills which are not his own. How can the opposing minority be both free and subject to laws to which they have not consented? I answer that the question is badly formulated. The citizen consents to all the laws, even to those that are passed against his will, and even to those which punish him when he dares to break any one of them. The constant will of all the members of the state is the general will; it is through it that they are citizens and are free.

Character | Man | Question | Will | Wills |

Grady Poulard

The measure of a man is not determined by his show of outward strength or the volume of his voice or the thunder of his action. It is to be seen rather in terms of the strength of his inner self in terms of the nature and depth of his commitments the sincerity of his purpose and his willingness to continue "growing up."

Action | Character | Man | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Sincerity | Strength |

Francis Quarles

The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite’s dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it.

Character | Heart | World |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Conscience is the voice of the soul.

Character | Conscience | Soul |

Theodor Reik

The small share of happiness attainable by man exists only insofar as he is able to cease to think of himself.

Character | Man | Happiness | Think |

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 |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

What the inner voice says will not disappoint the hoping soul.

Character | Soul | Will |

Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, aka Beis Halevi

Fear destroys desires... Even a small amount of fear of the Almighty will remove your coveting.

Character | Fear | Will |

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.

Character |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

Each successive generation plunges into the abyss of passion, without the slightest regard to the fatal effects which such conduct has produced upon their predecessors; and lament, when too late, the rashness with which they slighted the advice of experience, and stifled the voice of reason.

Advice | Character | Conduct | Experience | Passion | Rashness | Reason | Regard |

Arthur William Symons

No perfect thing is too small for eternal recollection.

Character | Eternal |

Jeremy Taylor

If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness; and so is always either terrible or ridiculous.

Anger | Cause | Character | Fury |

Ganga Stone

The desire to serve others is the highest impulse of the human heart and the rewards of such service are beyond measure. If you wish to taste this, then just do it. Just take one step... You will see that the tyranny of self-concern, worry, and trivial pursuits can be released from your life with that single step. It doesn't really matter what you do, it only matters that you do it.

Character | Desire | Heart | Impulse | Life | Life | Self | Service | Taste | Tyranny | Will | Worry |

Richard Steele, fully Sir Richard Steele

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.

Character | Conduct | Conversation | Inclination | Life | Life | Man |