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

William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall

You need more tact in the dangerous art of giving than in any other social action.

Action | Art | Character | Giving | Need | Tact | Art |

Austin Phelps

Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost possible achievement - these are the martial virtues which must command success.

Achievement | Character | Daring | Force | Opportunity | Persistence | Success | Tact | Vigilance |

Samuel Butler

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

Silence | Tact | Wisdom |

John W. Daniel, fully John Warwick Daniel

Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us - a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech - the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime.

Attention | Character | Charity | Conduct | Crime | Difficulty | Diplomacy | Events | Giving | Intrigue | Life | Life | Means | Men | Mystery | Order | Power | Providence | Purity | Selfishness | Service | Speech | Tact | Understanding | Wisdom | Wise |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent.

Nothing | Tact | Learn |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always inquiring never learn anything.

Nothing | Tact | Learn |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come in relation with a person, the more necessary tact and courtesy become.

Courtesy | Tact | Friendship |

Arthur Helps, fully Sir Arthur Helps

Few persons have tact enough to perceive when to be silent.

Enough | Tact |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Perseverance and tact are the two great qualities most valuable for all men who would mount, but especially for those who have to step out of the crowd.

Men | Perseverance | Qualities | Tact |

Henry Ross Perot

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become.

Courtesy | Tact | Friendship |

Nicolas Chamfort,fully Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort, also spelled Nicholas

Good taste, tact, and propriety have more in common than men of letters affect to believe. Tact is good taste applied to bearing and conduct, and propriety is good taste applied to conversation.

Good | Men | Tact | Taste |

Robertson Davies

In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth

Experience | Tact |

Samuel Butler

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

Tact |