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

Honoré de Balzac

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gait, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius.

Character | Disrespect | Effort | Genius | Gentleness | Little | Looks | Man | Manners | Mind | Simplicity | Thought |

Christian Nestell Bovee

Passion looks not beyond the moment of its existence.

Character | Existence | Looks | Passion |

Jean de La Bruyère

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.

Character | Cunning | Discretion | Good | Instinct | Life | Life | Looks | Men | Perfection | Reason | Sense | Understanding |

Cyrus the Great, aka Cyrus the Elder, Cyrus II or Cyrus of Persia NULL

All men have their frailties; and whoever looks for a friend without imperfections, will never find what he seeks. We love ourselves notwithstanding our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner.

Character | Frailties | Friend | Looks | Love | Men | Will | Friends |

Louise L. Hay

Guilt always looks for punishment, and punishment creates pain.

Character | Guilt | Looks | Pain | Punishment | Wisdom |

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 |

Walter Savage Landor

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present.

Character | Future | Human nature | Life | Life | Little | Looks | Nature | Present |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Character | Dreams | Heart | Looks | Vision | Will |

Madame de Motteville, Françoise Bertaut de Motteville

An orgy looks particularly alluring seen through the mists of righteous indignation.

Character | Indignation | Looks |

James McCosh

Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven.

Character | Complacency | Deeds | Earth | Heaven | Humility | Looks | Nature | Past | Pride | Rest |

Harold Oxley

The fact is that we can find happiness only in serving others. Just as a car is designed to move, so is a man designed to serve. And if he looks for happiness in anything other than service and sacrifice, he will always be disappointed.

Character | Looks | Man | Sacrifice | Service | Will | Happiness |

Sinéad O’Connor, fully Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor

We humans are here because God wanted to behold God. He created us in His image and gave us free will to behave one way or another, to choose between doing the job of reflecting Him and doing what looks more exciting.

Character | Free will | God | Looks | Will | God |

Alexander Pope

All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

Character | Looks |

Cardinal de Retz, Jean Francois-Paul de Gondil

One of man's greatest failings is that he looks almost always for an excuse, in the misfortune that befalls him through his own fault, before looking for a remedy - which means he often finds the remedy too late.

Character | Fault | Looks | Man | Means | Misfortune | Misfortune |

Sydney Smith

That charity alone endures which flows from a sense of duty and a hope in God. this is the charity that treads in secret those paths of misery from which all but the lowest of human wretches have fled; this is that charity which no labor can weary, no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust; that toils, that pardons, that suffers; that is seen by no man, and honored by no man, but, like the great laws of Nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks to a future and better world for its reward.

Better | Character | Charity | Duty | Future | God | Hope | Ingratitude | Labor | Looks | Man | Nature | Reward | Sense | Silence | Work | World | God |

Stephen Samuel Wise

Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith.

Aspiration | Character | Duty | Faith | Looks | Vision |

Richard Whately

Of all hostile feelings, envy is perhaps the hardest to be subdued, because hardly any one owns it even to himself, but looks out for one pretext after another to justify his hostility.

Character | Envy | Feelings | Justify | Looks |