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

Jean de La Bruyère

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.

Conversation | Wisdom |

Chartery NULL

Debt haunts the mind; a conversation about justice troubles it; the sight of a creditor fills it with confusion; even the sanctuary is not a place of refuge. The borrower is servant to the lender. Independence, so essential to the virtues and pleasures of a man, can only be maintained by setting bounds to our desires and owing no man anything.

Conversation | Debt | Justice | Man | Mind | Troubles | Wisdom |

Bruce Burton

For good or ill, your conversation is your advertisement. Every time you open your mouth you let men look into your mind. Do they see it well clothed, neat, business-wise?

Business | Conversation | Good | Men | Mind | Time | Wisdom | Wise |

Benjamin Franklin

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, hear much, always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as we possibly can; to hearken to what is said, and to answer to the purpose.

Conversation | Distrust | Little | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Wisdom | Wit |

Léon Gambetta

Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end.

Ability | Discretion | Wisdom |

John Hallock

I've noticed two things about men who get big salaries. They are almost invariably men who, in conversation or in conference, are adaptable. They quickly get the other fellow's view. They are more eager to do this than to express their own ideas. Also, they state their own point of view convincingly.

Conversation | Ideas | Men | Wisdom |

David Hume

Among well-bred people a mutual deference is affected, contempt of others is disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority.

Attention | Authority | Contempt | Conversation | Deference | People | Superiority | Vehemence | Wisdom |

André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems to be too short.

Conversation | Happy | Marriage | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

Conversation | Wisdom |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

Three things we should keep in mind [in conversation]: first, that we speak in the presence of people as vain as ourselves, whose vanity suffers in proportion as ours is satisfied; second, that there are few truths important enough to justify paining and reproving others for not knowing them; finally, that any man who monopolizes the conversation is a fool or would be fortunate if he were one.

Conversation | Enough | Important | Justify | Knowing | Man | Mind | People | Wisdom | Truths |

William Lyon Phelps

Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

Books | Cause | Conversation | Good | Happy | Leisure | Love | Means | Music | People | Personality | Wisdom | World | Happiness | Think |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The tone of good conversation is brilliant and natural; it is neither tedious nor frivolous; it is instructive without pedantry, gay without tumultuousness, polished without affectation, gallant without insipidity, waggish without equivocation.

Affectation | Conversation | Equivocation | Good | Pedantry | Wisdom |

Lyall Watson

There are around half a million words in the English language, but a recent statistical study of telephone speech discovered that 96 percent of all conversation over the wires consists of just 737 words.

Conversation | Language | Speech | Study | Wisdom | Words |

Perry F. Webb, fully Perry Flynt Webb or Perry Flint Webb

The home... is the lens through which we get our first look at marriage and all civic duties; it is the clinic where, by conversation and attitude, impressions are created with respect to sobriety and reverence; it is the school where lessons of truth or falsehood, honesty or deceit are learned; it is the mold which ultimately determines the structure of society.

Conversation | Deceit | Falsehood | Honesty | Marriage | Respect | Reverence | Society | Truth | Wisdom | Respect |

Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

Argument | Conversation | Democracy |

Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

Control | Discretion | Education | Enough | People | Safe | Society | Society | Think |

Agnes Repplier

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

Conversation | Thought | Learn |