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

Karl Rahner

Only one thing can give unity in the Church on the human level: the love which allows another to be different even when it does not understand him.

Church | Love | Unity | Understand |

Louisa May Alcott

My parents never bound us to any church but taught us that the love of goodness was the love of God, the cheerful doing of duty made life happy, and that the love of one’s neighbor in its widest sense was the best help for oneself. Their lives showed us how lovely this simple faith was, how much honor, gratitude and affection it brought them, and what a sweet memory they left behind.

Church | Duty | Faith | God | Gratitude | Happy | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Parents | Sense |

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

People don’t come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.

Church | God | People |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The greatest incitement to sin is the hope of not being punished.

Hope | Sin |

Martin Luther

The Church owes its life to the word of promise through faith, and is nourished and preserved by this same word.

Church | Faith | Life | Life | Promise |

Nikos Kazantzakis

Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.

Habit | Sin |

Oliver Goldsmith

Filial obedience is the first and greatest requisite of a state; by this we become good subjects to our emperors, capable of behaving with just subordination to our superiors, and grateful dependents on heaven; by this we become fonder of marriage, in order to be capable of exacting obedience from other sin our turn; by this we become good magistrates, for early submission is the truest lesson to those who would learn to rule. By this the whole state may be said to resemble one family.

Family | Good | Heaven | Lesson | Marriage | Obedience | Order | Rule | Sin | Submission | Learn |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

Watch your motives in everything. Both the greedy man and the yogi eat. But would you say that eating is a sin because it is often associated with greed? Sin lies in the thought, in the motive. The worldly man eats to satisfy his greed, and the yogi eats to keep his body well. There is a lot of difference.

Body | Greed | Man | Motives | Sin | Thought |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

You commit a sin of omission if you do not utilize all the power that is within you. All people have claims on man, and to the person with special talents, this is a very special claim. It is required that a person take part in the actions and clashes of their time than the peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

Man | People | Peril | Power | Sin | Time |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

Opinion | Sin | Forgive |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all one pattern. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

Lesson | Men | Opinion | Sin | Forgive | Learn |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only sin which we never forgive in each other is a difference of opinion.

Opinion | Sin | Forgive |

Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh

Eat slowly; only men in rags and gluttons old in sin mistake themselves for carpet-bags and tumble victuals in.

Men | Mistake | Sin | Old |

Sidney Hook

One man’s sin may be another man’s duty and a third man’s bliss… A democratic community cannot recognize the category of sin, legislate against it and punish those for whom the proscribed action is not sinful.

Action | Duty | Man | Sin |

Zohar or The Zohar, literally "Splendor or Radiance" NULL

A sin leaves a mark; repeated, it deepens the mark; when committed a third time, the mark becomes a stain.

Sin | Time |

Talmud or The Talmud NULL

A big sin is forgotten, a little sin is not.

Little | Sin |