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

Joseph Jones "J.J." Reynolds

Remember that when you're in the right you can afford to keep your temper and that when you're in the wrong you can't afford to lose it.

Character | Right | Temper | Wrong |

Robert A. Heinlein, fully Robert Anson Heinlein, pen name for Anson MacDonald

Ninety percent of all human wisdom is the ability to mind your own business.

Ability | Business | Character | Mind | Wisdom |

Rollo C. Hester

In building a firm foundation for Success, here are a few stones to remember: The wisdom of preparation. The value of confidence. The worth of honesty. The privilege of working. The discipline of struggle. The magnetism of character. The radiance of health. The forcefulness of simplicity. The winsomeness of courtesy. The attractiveness of modesty. The inspiration of cleanliness. The satisfaction of serving. The power of suggestion. The buoyancy of enthusiasm. The advantage of initiative. The virtue of patience. The rewards of co-operation. The fruitfulness of perseverance. The sportsmanship of losing. The joy of winning.

Character | Cleanliness | Confidence | Courtesy | Discipline | Enthusiasm | Health | Honesty | Initiative | Inspiration | Joy | Modesty | Patience | Perseverance | Power | Simplicity | Struggle | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Worth | Privilege | Value |

Thomas Hobbes

To this war of every man, against every man, this is also consequent that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice, and injustice, are none of the faculties neither of the body, nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his sense, and passions. They are qualities, that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition, that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and thing distinct; but only that to be every man’s, that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.

Body | Character | Force | Fraud | Injustice | Injustice | Justice | Law | Man | Men | Mind | Nothing | Power | Qualities | Right | Sense | Society | Solitude | War | World | Wrong |

Robert Hall

Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little - diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God’s mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness.

Blessings | Character | Ends | Faith | God | Greatness | Little | Looks | Right | Time | Wrong | Infidelity |

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

Much of this world’s wisdom is still acquired by necromancy, by consulting the oracular dead.

Character | Wisdom | World |

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

It is much easier to think right without doing right, than to do right without thinking right. Just thoughts may, and often do, fail of producing just deeds; but just deeds are sure to get just thoughts. The clearest understanding can do little in purifying an impure heart, the strongest little in straightening a crooked one. You cannot reason or talk an Augean stable into cleanliness. A single day's work would make more progress in such a task than a century's words.

Character | Cleanliness | Day | Deeds | Heart | Little | Progress | Reason | Right | Thinking | Understanding | Words | Work | Deeds | Think |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker is not really interested in self-improvement. He is only interested in gaining approval from others. Hence, he will disregard any fault he has if he knows that others will not notice it. On the other hand, a person who is able to forego his honor is able to focus on truth. His only thought is to do the right thing and he is willing to sacrifice his honor for his principles. Such a person will eventually receive honor, for he will constantly work on improving himself.

Character | Fault | Focus | Honor | Improvement | Principles | Receive | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-improvement | Thought | Truth | Will | Work | Approval | Fault | Thought |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom to have lived free from folly.

Character | Folly | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

David Hume

Among the other excellencies of man, this is one, that he can form the image of perfection much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.

Character | Experience | Man | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

William James

We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |

Edward Porter Humphrey

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

Character | Knowing | Wisdom | Worth |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The relationship between moral action and spiritual knowledge is circular, as it were, and reciprocal. Selfless behavior makes possible an accession of knowledge, and the accession of knowledge makes possible the performance of further and more genuinely selfless actions, which in their turn enhance the agent’s capacity for knowing... A man undertakes right action (which includes, of course, right consciousness and right meditation), and this enables him to catch a glimpse of the Self that underlies his separate individuality. Having seen his own self as the Self, he becomes selfless (and therefore acts selflessly) and in virtue of selflessness he is to be conceived as unconditioned.

Action | Behavior | Capacity | Character | Consciousness | Individuality | Knowing | Knowledge | Man | Meditation | Relationship | Right | Self | Virtue | Virtue |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

It is in the light of our beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality that we formulate our conceptions of right and wrong; and it is in the light of our conceptions of right and wrong that we frame our conduct.

Character | Conduct | Light | Nature | Reality | Right | Wrong |

Gerald White Johnson

No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility.

Character | Man | Responsibility | Right | Time |

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Courage, contrary to popular belief, is not the absence of fear. Courage is the wisdom to act in spite of fear.

Absence | Belief | Character | Courage | Fear | Wisdom |

Robert Hutchins, fully Robert Maynard Hutchins

Nature will not forgive those who fail to fulfill the law of their being. The law of human beings is wisdom and goodness, not limited acquisition.

Character | Law | Nature | Will | Wisdom | Forgive |

Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón

The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them.

Character | Desire | Haste | Life | Life | Means | Right | Time |

Hubert Humphrey, fully Hubert Horatio Humphrey

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.

Character | Knowing | Wisdom | Worth |