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

John James Ingalls

Every man is the center of a circle, whose fatal circumference he can not pass.

Character | Man | Wisdom |

Maria Jane Jewsbury

Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character; gives higher motive and nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous. The power to love truly and devotedly is the nobles gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols.

Action | Character | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Man | Power | Sacred | Self | Woman |

William Jay

One of the most useless of all things is to take a deal of trouble in providing against dangers that never come. How many toil to lay up riches which they never enjoy; to provide for exigencies that never happen; to prevent troubles that never come; sacrificing present comfort and enjoyment in guarding against the wants of a period they may never live to see.

Character | Comfort | Enjoyment | Present | Riches | Troubles | Wants | Riches | Trouble |

Lord Francis Jeffrey

A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.

Character | Good | Will |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

No one is born without vices, and he is the best man who is encumbered with the least.

Character | Man |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

The more a man denies himself, the more he shall obtain from God.

Character | God | Man |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.

Cause | Character | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wrong |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.

Character | Man | Wise | Govern |

William Dean Howells

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

Character | Man |

William James

In ethical, psychological and aesthetic matters, to give a clear reason for one’s judgment is universally recognized as a mark of rare genius. The helplessness of uneducated people account for their likes and dislikes is often ludicrous.

Aesthetic | Character | Genius | Judgment | People | Reason |

Thomas Hughes

The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.

Character | Conscience | Courage | Man | Manliness | Perfection |

Victor Hugo

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

Character | Man | Mother | Woman | Child | Old |

David Hume

Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.

Character | Disbelief | Morality | Peace | Reason | Society |

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

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.

Character | Desire | God | Humility | Man | Nothing | Power | Silence | Soul | Wishes |

William James

In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering... A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices... the difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.

Cause | Character | Choice | Good | Important | Man | People | Thinking | Think |

Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

Calumny confounds a wised man and destroys the oak of his heart.

Calumny | Character | Heart | Man |