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

James Madison

To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold the union of the States as the basis of their peace and happiness; to support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system; to avoid the slightest interference with the right of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and of the freedom of the press; to observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics — that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe; to promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the best aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state — as far as sentiments and intentions such as these can aid the fulfillment of my duty, they will be a resource which can not fail me.

Aid | Conscience | Decision | Discussion | Energy | Freedom | Fulfillment | Liberty | Life | Life | Manners | Means | Mind | Nations | Neutrality | Peace | People | Public | Respect | Right | Rights | Science | Spirit | Success | Surrender | Will | Respect |

James Russell Lowell

There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual.

Conscience | Life | Life |

Jean Vanier

A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of man is to accept his insignificance, his human condition and his earth, and to thank God for having put in a finite body the seeds of eternity which are visible in small and daily gestures of love and forgiveness. The beauty of man is in this fidelity to the wonder of each day.

Beauty | Body | Day | Eternity | Fidelity | God | Greatness | Love | Man | Wonder | Beauty | God |

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.

Children | Conscience | Evil | Good |

Jerome K. Jerome, fully Jerome Klapka Jerome

People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.

Business | Conscience | Happy | Business |

Jean Grou, fully Jean Nicholas Grou

Nothing is small or great in God’s sight. Whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling; and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.

Conscience | Right | Wills |

John Dewey

One lives with so many bad deeds on one's conscience and some good intentions in one's heart.

Conscience | Deeds | Good | Deeds |

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

It is a well-known psychological fact that the conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; and that their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.

Children | Conscience | Evil | Good |

John Calvin

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.

Conscience | Hell | Torture |

John Antoine Petit-Senn

Money dishonestly acquired is never worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.

Conscience | Good | Worth |

John Yepes “Saint John of the Cross”

God desires the smallest degree of purity of conscience in you more than all the works you can perform.

Conscience | Purity |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The wall of separation between the sacred and the secular has become a wall of separation between the conscience and God.

Conscience | Sacred |

John Stuart Mill

The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.

Care | Conscience | Freedom of conscience | Freedom | Intolerance | Liberty | Mankind | Peace | World |

Joseph Addison

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.

Conscience | Good | Health | Serenity | Soul |

John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason

Our conscience is a fire within us, and our sins as the fuel; instead of warming, it will scorch us, unless the fuel be removed, or the heat of it be allayed by penitential tears.

Conscience | Will |

Joseph Addison

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Fidelity | Wrong |

Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth, and our persistent leanings to error. But most of all they resemble us in their precious hold on life.

Books | Fidelity |

Joshua L. Liebman, fully Joshua Loth Liebman

Man is not alone and neither his mind nor his conscience nor his creative powers can be truly understood if they are regarded as orphans without some universal Parent.

Conscience | Mind |

Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland

A man does not necessarily sin who does that which our reason and our conscience condemn.

Conscience | Man | Reason | Sin |

Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson

Everyone in daily life carries such a heavy, mixed burden on his own conscience that he is reluctant to penalize those who have been caught.

Conscience | Life | Life |