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

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

From the very beginning of a person’s life one learns that the purpose of life is not uninterrupted pleasure. Every infant suffers pains and illnesses. We should not perceive illness and pain as negative. Suffering teaches us humility. We learn that we do not have complete power over ourselves.

Beginning | Character | Humility | Life | Life | Pain | Pleasure | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering | Learn |

Albertano of Brescia NULL

Often have I heard it said, What good thing you can do, do not defer it.

Character | Good | Wisdom |

Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

Character | Ends | Men | Power | Self |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

Character | Power | Soul |

Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

Love has to spring spontaneously from within. It is no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but though Love cannot be forced on anyone, It can be awakened in him through Love itself. Love is essentially self-communicative. Those who do not have It catch It from those who have It. True love is unconquerable and irresistible; and It goes on gathering power and spreading Itself, until eventually It transforms everyone whom It touches.

Character | Coercion | Force | Love | Power | Self |

George Matthew Adams

There is no such thing as a "self-made" man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.

Character | Man | Self | Success |

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

The most feared event in a person’s life is death. But we have the ability to transform our death into the greatest act we will perform in our entire life. We can perceive death as our total submission to the will of the Almighty and find tremendous spiritual elevation.

Ability | Character | Death | Life | Life | Submission | Will |

Winthrop Williams Aldrich

The price of power is responsibility for the public good.

Character | Good | Power | Price | Public | Responsibility | Wisdom |

William Arthur

The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of power in the highest sphere - moral nature; with the highest prerogative - to change nature; and operating to the highest result - not to create originally, which is great; but to create anew, which is greater.

Change | Character | Evidence | Nature | Power |

H. B.

The first real mental illumination I remember to have experienced was when I saw that the universe exists in each of its individual atoms - that is, the universe is the result of a few simple processes infinitely repeated. When a drop of water has been mathematically measured, every principle will have been used which would be called form in the measurement of the heavens. All life on the globe is sustained by digestion and assimilation; when by voluntary and traumatic action these stop death follows. The history of an individual mind is the history of the race. Know one thing in its properties and relations and you will know all things.

Action | Character | Death | History | Individual | Life | Life | Mind | Race | Universe | Will |

Amen-em-apt NULL

Another good thing in the heart of God is to pause before speaking.

Character | God | Good | Heart | Wisdom | God |

Arthur Aughey

A cheerful spirit is one of the most valuable gifts ever bestowed upon humanity by a kind Creator. It is the sweetest and the most fragrant flower of the Spirit, that constantly sends out its beauty and fragrance, and blesses everything within its reach. It will sustain the soul in the darkest and most dreary places of this world. It will hold in check the demons of despair, and stifle the power of discouragement and hopelessness. It is the brightest star that ever cast its radiance over the darkened soul, and one that seldom sets in the gloom of morbid fancies and foreboding imaginations.

Beauty | Character | Despair | Gloom | Humanity | Power | Soul | Spirit | Will | World | Beauty |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Character | Judgment | Power |