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

S. Truett Cathy

Ever since I was a teenager delivering newspapers (for seven straight years), I have tried not to lose a single customer. I treated each one like the most important person in the world and delivered each paper as if I were delivering it to the front door of the Governor’s mansion. The key to succeeding with a paper route and the restaurant business, I would later learn, is to take care of the customer. Whether on the paper route or in my restaurants, I have found that the most effective way of promoting my business didn’t cost me anything but a little kindness to my customers.

Business | Courtesy | Experience | God | Good | Honor | Reward | Sacrifice | Success | Business | God | Happiness |

S. Truett Cathy

Why do we close on Sunday? Well, it started back in 1946 when I opened my first restaurant, a 24-hour coffee shop called The Dwarf Grill. After the first week, I determined that if it took seven days a week to make a living, I should be in some other business. Too, it was my conscience that I had to live with; I just never could come to the idea of dealing with money on the Lord’s Day. I became a Christian at age 12; that’s not to say that everything I’ve done since that time is becoming to a Christian, but I believe the Lord had blessed us because we recognize Him on this special day we call Sunday.

Day | Policy | Success |

Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL

Worldly glory is a reef in the sea covered by water; for as this lies unknown to the sailor until his vessel strikes it, cracks up, is filled with water and sinks, so vain glory does to a man until it drowns and destroys him.

Day | Deeds | Man | Silence | Soul | Success | Deeds |

Samuel Adams

It is always dangerous to the liberties of the people to have an army stationed among them, over which they have no control ... The Militia is composed of free Citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them.

Applause | Authority | Individual | Loyalty | Loyalty | Mistake | Object | Success |

Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

Jealousy | Success |

Sammy Davis, Jr., born Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr.

The one thing you don't want is that stale sound when you've done a line so much you can't find a fresh approach to it. Drop it.

Cost | Success | Friends | Old |

Samuel Gompers

My opinion is that we require no more Commissions, no more Sage investigators. What we want is action, and we want it immediately. We want a Department of Labor established, with a Secretary at its head, who shall have a seat in the President's cabinet, and that man to be a man who knows what Labor is, not only from a theoretical standpoint, but from the practical standpoint. . . . I hope you will do your utmost to see that such a Department is established, and let us get away from the puny vacillating system of unnecessary excuses by referring matters to irresponsible Commissions, from which no permanent and beneficial results ensue.

Absolute | Desire | Experience | Failure | Men | Necessity | People | Progress | Reason | Receive | Success | Failure |

Samuel Gompers

You know me well enough that I am not one to generally encourage strikes. I have done my share and will continue to do my part in the effort to prevent them, but there comes a time when if a strike is avoided it means the demoralization of the men, taking the heart and spirit out of them, and they go to work under worse conditions and in a greater degree of bondage than theretofore.

Government | Industry | Success | System | Government |

Sam Walton, fully Samuel Moore "Sam" Walton

All of this is more important, and more fun, than you think. Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt.

Family | Good | Important | Success |

Samuel Gompers

I think the workers understand much better than anyone else the cost of industrial war. They pay the full price.... Labor will cease to engage in contests with employers as soon as labor finds it possible to induce employers to conduct the affairs of industry on a higher plane. Labor is ever eager to substitute negotiation for contest.

Civilization | Labor | People | Position | Success |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Among those whom I never could persuade to rank themselves with idlers, and who speak with indignation of my morning sleeps and nocturnal rambles, one passes the day in catching spiders, that he may count their eyes with a microscope; another exhibits the dust of of a marigold separated from the flower with a dexterity worthy of Leuwenhoeck himself. Some turn the wheel of electricity; some suspend rings to a load­stone, and find that what they did yesterday, they can do again today. - Some register the changes of the wind, and die fully convinced that the wind is changeable. - There are men yet more profound, who have heard that two colorless liquors may produce a color by union, and that two cold bodies will grow hot if they are mingled: they mingle them, and produce the effect expected, say it is strange, and mingle them again.

Character | Disguise | Folly | Pride | Success |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Hope | Pleasure | Success | Wishes |

Samuel Smiles

Knowledge conquered by labor becomes a possession - a property entirely our own.

Fraud | Man | Success | Time | Will |

Samuel Smiles

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men have had to serve.

Right | Success |

Samuel Smiles

Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men -- their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others.

Fighting | Men | Success |

Samuel Ullman

All animals except man know that the ultimate point of life is to enjoy it.

Success | Leadership |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

Confidence | Life | Life | Man | Success |

Sidney Madwed

The motivation for all personal behavior is to produce a sense of FEEL GOOD, a sense of inner peace and well-being. To expect a person to go against his desire to feel good or as good as he can feel under any momentary condition is illogical and irrational. In the observation of human behavior, one will notice every human act is a response to a personal need. This is true whether one signs a million dollar contract, scratches one's nose, rolls over in bed, or just day dreams his life away. People will do things which seem contrary to this concept, but the bottom line is they perceive some kind of payoff which will make them feel good. And the payoff is almost always emotional. When you ask people why they want to be financially independent, they might say that they could buy things without having to worry about where the money will come from. And when they worry, they don't FEEL GOOD. A drug addict, a compulsive eater, an alcoholic and anyone with a compulsive habit will continue with their habits because at the moment of action they believe and feel it will make them feel good. That is why breaking compulsive habits are so difficult.

Choice | Failure | Freedom | Success | Will | Failure |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

A man's heterosexuality will not put up with any homosexuality, and vice versa.

Confidence | Life | Life | Man | Mother | Success |