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

Richard Baxter

I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth.

Character | Earth | Expectation | Experience | Heaven | Love | Soul | Expectation | Friends |

William Blake

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

Character | Man | Perception |

Boethius, fully Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius NULL

It is one thing to be carried through an endless life, another thing to embrace the whole presence of an endless life together, which is manifestly proper to the divine Mind. The temporal world seems to emulate in part that which it cannot fully obtain or express, tying itself to whatever presence there is in this exiguous and fleeting moment - a presence which, since it carries a certain image of that abiding Presence, gives to whatever may partake of it the quality of seeming to have being. But because it could not stay, it undertook an infinite journey of time; and so it came to pass that, by going, it continued that life, whose plenitude it could not comprehend by staying.

Character | Journey | Life | Life | Mind | Time | World |

Heywood Broun, fully Matthew Heywood Campbell Broun

The ability to make love frivolously is the thing which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.

Ability | Character | Love |

Jean de La Bruyère

He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.

Character | Recompense | Success |

Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL

There is nothing that can be called a “Self,” and there is no such thing as “mine” in all the world.

Character | Nothing | Self | World |

William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall

The highest part of the art of life is the expectation of miracles.

Art | Character | Expectation | Life | Life | Miracles | Art | Expectation |

Thomas Brooks

When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all.

Character | Danger | Distrust | Fear | Man | Mother | Need | Security | Sense | Temptation |

William Blake

If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Character | Folly | Wise |

Richard Cecil

To love to preach is one thing - to love those to whom we preach, quite another.

Character | Love |

Richard Cecil

Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of what he is not.

Aims | Appearance | Character | Folly | Hypocrisy | Man |

Stuart Cloete, fully Edward Fairly Stuart Graham

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Character | Happy |

Jeremy Collier

Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.

Character | Confidence | Language | Security | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |

Pierre Charron

Mutability is the a badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike.

Character | Design | Man | Mutability |

William Congreve

Uncertainty and expectation are the joyous of life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing or a wish discovers the folly of the chase.

Character | Expectation | Folly | Life | Life | Security | Uncertainty | Wisdom | Expectation |

Jeremy Collier

Prudence is the necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

Character | Excess | Folly | Prudence | Prudence |

Horace Bushnell

The nobles charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents, more or less directly, the fruitfulness and creativeness of religion.

Character | Justice | Law | Learning | Religion | World |

Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

Strive to know thyself, the most difficult thing to know that can be imagined.

Character | Know thyself |