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

Publius Syrus

Meet an accusation with silence and you make it sharper.

Character | Silence |

H. F. Rall, fully Harris Franklin

Freedom means mastery of your world. Fear and greed are common sources of bondage. We are afraid, beset by anxiety. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We seem so helpless over against the forces that move now without apparent thought for men. And our inner freedom is destroyed by greed. We think that if we only had enough goods we should be free, happy, without care. And so there comes the lust for money, and slavery to the world of things. The world can enslave; it can never make us free.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Care | Character | Enough | Fear | Freedom | Greed | Happy | Lust | Means | Men | Money | Slavery | Thought | Tomorrow | Will | World | Think | Thought |

James R. Quirk

The value of silence in art is its stimulation to the imagination.

Art | Character | Imagination | Silence | Art | Value |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualification is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.

Benevolence | Character | Dignity | Elegance | Excellence | Giving | Human nature | Knowledge | Morality | Nature | Pain | Sense | Society | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Excellence | Think | Thought |

Yitzchok Isaac Sher

A person easily becomes a slave to his habits. The most difficult habits to break are the habits of thinking in a certain manner. You can have a large amount of control over yourself by working to obtain positive habits. Even with habits of thoughts, we have the ability to utilize the power of habit to form the habit of thinking rationally and productively, and to elevate our thoughts to such a degree that we will have changed our entire thought patterns for the better.

Ability | Better | Character | Control | Habit | Power | Thinking | Thought | Will | Thought |

Mikhail D. Skobeleff or Skobeolev, fully Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev

Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fame.

Character | Fame | Family | Man | Pedigree | Thought | Thought |

Shimon HaTzaddik

For his entire life he was in the company of wise men and Of all the things beneficial to one’s body, silence is the best. [paraphrase]

Body | Character | Life | Life | Men | Silence | Wise |

Mikhail D. Skobeleff or Skobeolev, fully Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev

I make little account of genealogical trees. Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fame.

Character | Fame | Family | Little | Man | Pedigree | Thought | Thought |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

Whatever convenience may be thought to be in falsehood and dissimulation, it is soon over; but the inconvenience of it is perpetual, because it brings a man under everlasting jealousy and suspicion, so that he is not believed when he speaks the truth, nor trusted when perhaps he means honestly.

Character | Falsehood | Jealousy | Man | Means | Suspicion | Thought | Truth | Thought |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye.

Character | Friend | Nothing | Silence |

Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson

In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one every thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.

Age | Good | Myth | People | Thought | Time | Wisdom | Old | Thought |

Michelangelo, aka Michaelangelo Buonarroti, fully Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni NULL

I thought all the while, I was leaning how to live, but now I know, I was learning how to die.

Learning | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |

Esther Baldwin York

Whatever your work is, dignify it with your best thought and effort.

Character | Effort | Thought | Wisdom | Work | Thought |