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

Alcaeus NULL

Anger, 'tis said, is the last thing to grow old.

Anger | Wisdom |

Sherwood Anderson

The whole object of education is, or should be, to develop mind. The mind should be a thing that works. It should be able to pass judgment on events as they arise, make decisions.

Education | Events | Judgment | Mind | Object | Wisdom |

Daniel Webster

Confidence is a thing not to be produced by compulsion. Men cannot be forced into trust.

Character | Confidence | Men | Trust |

James Q. Wilson

To say that people have a moral sense is not the same thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense must compete with other senses that are natural to humans - the desire to survive, acquire possessions, indulge in sex, or accumulate power - in short, with self-interest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying that a moral sense exists is the same thing as saying that humans, by their nature, are potentially good.

Character | Circumstances | Day | Desire | Good | Nature | People | Possessions | Power | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Struggle | Will |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: there is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; we must love one another or die.

Authority | Choice | Hunger | Love | Man | Wisdom |

J. C. Wynn

There is a mistaken notion prevailing among some parents that discipline is the same thing as punishment. It is not. Discipline comes from a Latin word meaning "to teach." The best discipline is that which teaches, not the kind that hurts.

Character | Discipline | Meaning | Parents | Punishment | Teach |

Hugh Lawson White

When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. the future is yet in your power.

Character | Future | Mind | Mistake | Past | Power | Reason | Wisdom |

Alain Pen name of Emile-Auguste Chartier

It is a small thing to accept people for what they are; if we really love them we must want them to be what they are.

Love | People | Wisdom |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.

Events | Time | Will | Wisdom |

David Malet Armstrong, aka D. M. Armstrong

Beliefs about particular matters of fact (including beliefs whose content is an unrestricted existentially quantified proposition) are structures in the mind of the believer which represent or ‘map’ reality, including the believer’s own mind and belief-states. The fundamental representing elements and relations of the map represent the sorts of thing they represent because they spring from capacities of the believer to act selectively towards things of that sort.

Belief | Mind | Reality | Wisdom |

Paul Tyner

The absolute demonstration of man’s mastery of fate and command of all condition - the victory of man - all men in this racial man, this elder brother of mankind in his triumph over sin, fear and death! But one thing had remained in my mind as necessary to prove to the mass of men to-day man’s absolute supremacy over death in all its forms as an attribute of his oneness with God, with Eternal Life, Perfect Love, Perfect Justice, Omniscience and Omnipotence.

Absolute | Character | Day | Death | Eternal | Fate | Fear | God | Justice | Life | Life | Love | Man | Mankind | Men | Mind | Omnipotence | Omniscience | Oneness | Sin | Fate |

Eugene Ware, aka "Ironquill", fully Captain Eugene Fitch Ware

The charm of the deed is its doing; the charm of a life is its living; the soul of the thing is the thought.

Character | Life | Life | Soul | Thought |

Ardis Whitman, fully Ardis Rumsey Whitman

Toscanini's eightieth birthday, someone asked his son, Walter, what his father ranked as his most important achievement. The son replied, "For him there can be no such thing. Whatever he happens to be doing at the moment is the biggest thing in his life - whether it is conducting a symphony or peeling an orange."

Achievement | Character | Father | Important | Life | Life |

William Allen White

Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.

Character | Liberty | Wisdom |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

Should you ask me, "What is the first thing in religion?" I should reply, "The first, second, and third things therein - nay, all - is humility."

Humility | Religion | Wisdom |

Gregory Bateson

Any living thing which triumphs in the struggle against its environment destroys itself.

Struggle | Wisdom |