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

Walter Lippmann

Those who use their reason do not reach the same conclusions as those who obey their prejudices.

Character | Reason |

John Locke

The most precious of all possessions, is power over ourselves; power to withstand trial, to bear suffering, to front danger; power over pleasure and pain; power to follow convictions, however resisted by menace and scorn; the power of calm reliance in scenes of darkness an storms. He that has not a mastery over his inclinations; he that knows not how to resist the importunity of present pleasure or pain, for the sake of what reason tells him is fit to be done, wants the true principle of virtue and industry, and is in danger of never being good for anything.

Character | Convictions | Danger | Darkness | Good | Industry | Pain | Pleasure | Possessions | Power | Present | Reason | Suffering | Virtue | Virtue | Wants | Danger |

Marya Mannes

It is not enough to show people how to live better: there is a mandate for any group with enormous powers of communication to show people how to be better.

Better | Character | Enough | People |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

Who is a righteous man and who is an evil man? Many people think a righteous man is one who does not transgress, and the evil person is one who constantly transgresses. But even the very righteous also transgress and even the very wicked perform good deeds. The essential difference between the two is that a righteous person tries to overcome his desires to do wrong and the evil person does not.

Character | Deeds | Evil | Good | Man | People | Wrong | Think |

Ludwig Lewisohn

A people cannot be destroyed except from within.

Character | People |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

Character | People | Virtue | Virtue |

Georgii Litichevsky Semenovich

Life means love. We are here for love. Only love is real and everything is real thanks to love. We are nomads wandering through illusionary space. How to make it real? Only by destroying limits that separate us from others. No violence, no attempts at escape can help, only love. Too often love is more painful than joyful. The instances of love are much shorter than the periods during which we wait for love to emerge. The meaning of living is mastering the art of waiting.

Art | Character | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Means | Space | Waiting | Art |

Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

Honor-seeking pushes people to do things more than any other desire in the world. If a person would give up his demands for status, he would be content as long as his minimum needs for food, clothing, and shelter were met.

Character | Desire | Honor | People | World |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

A person doesn't only love himself in others; he also hates himself in others.

Character | Love |

Stephen Levine

When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.

Character | Compassion | Fear | Love | Pain | Pity |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

People become so used to being unhappy they are unaware of the needless misery they cause themselves. They imprison themselves by filling their minds with thoughts of resentment, hatred, envy, and desires. It is amazing how they tolerate living such a life. The only reason they do tolerate it is because they have become so used to living with such thoughts they fell it is the normal picture of life. They mistakenly think it is impossible for life to be any different.

Cause | Character | Envy | Life | Life | People | Reason | Resentment | Think |

John Locke

All virtue lies in a power of denying our own desires where reason does not authorize them.

Character | Power | Reason | Virtue | Virtue |

John Locke

The knowledge of our own being we have by intuition. The existence of a God, reason clearly makes known to us, as has been shown. The knowledge of existence of any other thing we can have only by sensation: for there being no necessary connection of real existence with any idea a man hath in his memory; nor of any other existence but that of God with the existence of any particular man: no particular man can know the existence of any other being but only when, by actual operating upon him, it makes itself perceived by him. For, the having the idea of anything in our mind, no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world, or the visions of a dream make thereby a true history.

Character | Existence | God | History | Intuition | Knowledge | Man | Memory | Mind | Reason | World | God |

Meridel Le Sueur, born Meridel Wharton

The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed-upon myth of its conquerors.

Character | History | Myth | People |

John Locke

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.

Character | Love | Perfection | Truth | World |

Maier NULL

I consider the subordination of reason to the authority of any person to be idolatry.

Authority | Character | Reason | Wisdom |

Lynn Margulis and Carl Lindegren

New ideas have a hard time in science. They tend to be suppressed by arrogance - condemnation by acknowledged leaders in the field... Dogmatism restrains, iconoclasm liberates. Vanity, powermongering, avariciousness, pride, dedication, love, industry, sadism and most other attributes of people apply to science and to scientists as well.

Arrogance | Character | Dedication | Ideas | Industry | Love | People | Pride | Science | Time |

Everett Dean Martin

There is only one sound method of moral education. It is teaching people to think.

Character | Education | Method | People | Sound |