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

Pasquier Quesnel

A just person knows how to secure his own reputation without blemishing another’s by exposing his faults.

Character | Reputation |

Pierre Louis Roederer

True purity of taste is a quality of the mind; it is a feeling which can, with little difficulty, be acquired by the refinement of intelligence; whereas purity of manners is the result of wise habits, in which all the interests of the soul are mingled and in harmony with the progress of intelligence. That is why the harmony of good taste and of good manners is more common than the existence of taste without manners, or of manners without taste.

Character | Difficulty | Existence | Good | Harmony | Intelligence | Little | Manners | Mind | Progress | Purity | Refinement | Soul | Taste | Wise |

Samuel Smiles

Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures respect. The former is more the product of the brain, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life.

Admiration | Character | Genius | Heart | Life | Life | Power | Respect |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.

Character | Falsehood | Integrity | Man | Nothing | Reputation | Truth | Will |

Ganga Stone

The desire to serve others is the highest impulse of the human heart and the rewards of such service are beyond measure. If you wish to taste this, then just do it. Just take one step... You will see that the tyranny of self-concern, worry, and trivial pursuits can be released from your life with that single step. It doesn't really matter what you do, it only matters that you do it.

Character | Desire | Heart | Impulse | Life | Life | Self | Service | Taste | Tyranny | Will | Worry |

Alexander Woollcott

Character is made by what you stand for; reputation by what you fall for.

Character | Reputation |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.

Opinion | Taste | Wisdom | Friends |

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. This is bad for everyone; the majority lose all genuine taste of their own, and the minority become cultural snobs.

Art | Entertainment | Majority | Taste | Wisdom |

Edwin Percy Whipple

There seem to be some persons, the favorites of fortune and darlings of nature, who are born cheerful. “A star danced” at their birth. It is no superficial visibility, but a bountiful and beneficent soul that sparkles in their eyes and smiles on their lips. Their inborn geniality amounts to genius, the rare and difficult genius which creates sweet and wholesome character, and radiates cheer.

Birth | Character | Fortune | Geniality | Genius | Nature | Soul |

François Arago, fully François Jean Dominique Arago

A time will come when the science of destruction shall bend before the arts of peace; when the genius which multiplies our powers, which creates new products, which diffuses comfort and happiness among the great mass of the people, shall occupy in the general estimation of mankind that rank which reason and common sense now assign to it.

Comfort | Common Sense | Estimation | Genius | Mankind | Peace | People | Rank | Reason | Science | Sense | Time | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Edwin Percy Whipple

Talent repeats; Genius creates. Talent is a cistern; Genius a fountain... Talent jogs to conclusions to which Genius takes giant leaps... Talent is full of thoughts, Genius of thought.

Character | Genius | Thought | Talent |

Joel Blau

I have no particular taste for post-mortem immortality. I am immortal now, while I am gloriously alive.

Immortality | Taste | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

It is not wisdom but ignorance that teaches men presumption. Genius may sometimes be arrogant, but nothing is so diffident as knowledge.

Genius | Ignorance | Knowledge | Men | Nothing | Presumption | Wisdom |

Jean de La Bruyère

Between good sense and good taste there is the same difference as between cause and effect.

Cause | Good | Sense | Taste | Wisdom |

Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith

A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.

Conduct | Reputation | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.

Genius | Life | Life | Man | Object | Observation | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus; it move stones and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes not victories without it.

Enthusiasm | Genius | Nothing | Sincerity | Truth | Wisdom |

Jean de La Bruyère

The genius of conversation consists much less in showing a great deal of it, than in causing it to be discovered in others.

Conversation | Genius | Wisdom |