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

Chazon Ish, named Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz

At times, laziness is the root of taking action. When we feel an urge to give in to a desire, we might hear a whisper telling us that something is not right. Laziness, however, prevents us from fighting that desire and we give in to our bad habit.

Action | Character | Desire | Fighting | Habit | Laziness | Right |

Arthur Dunn

Personal magnetism is a mixture of rugged Honesty, pulsating Energy, and self-organized Intelligence. I believe, absolutely, that truth is the strongest and most powerful weapon a man can use, whether he is fighting for a reform or fighting for a sale.

Character | Energy | Fighting | Honesty | Intelligence | Man | Reform | Self | Truth |

William James

We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |

Gloria D. Karpinski

Nonresistance isn’t passive. Passivity suggests powerlessness. But non-resistance is extremely powerful. It means we’re consciously choosing what we wish to empower. Nonresistance is the action of wisdom that assesses a situation and realizes there is nothing to be gained from fighting it.

Action | Character | Fighting | Means | Nothing | Wisdom |

Arundell Charles St. John-Mildmay

Reasoning against a prejudice is like fighting against a shadow; it exhausts the reasoner, without visibly affecting the prejudice.

Character | Fighting | Prejudice |

Arthur Dunn

Truth is the strongest and most powerful weapon a man can use, whether he is fighting for a reform or fighting for a sale.

Fighting | Man | Reform | Truth | Wisdom |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

Let us not be afraid of debate or dissent - let us encourage it. For if we should ever abandon these basic American traditions in the name of fighting Communism, what would it profit us to win the whole world when we have lost our soul?

Dissent | Fighting | Soul | Wisdom | World | Afraid |

Elias L. Magoon

The practice of perseverance is the discipline of the noblest virtues. To run well, we must run to the end. It is not the fighting but the conquering that gives a hero his title to renown.

Discipline | Fighting | Hero | Perseverance | Practice | Title | Wisdom |

Matthew B Ridgway, fully Matthew Bunker Ridgway

Physical courage is never in short supply in a fighting army. Moral courage sometimes is.

Courage | Fighting | Wisdom |

William Graham Sumner

If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. doctrines are the most fearful tyrants to which men ever are subject, because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.

Doctrine | Fighting | Man | Men | Reason | War | Wisdom |

Hans Albrecht Bethe

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.

Fighting | History | Ideals | War | Will |

Amilcar Cabral

Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men’s minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into real improvement of living conditions.

Better | Children | Fighting | Future | Ideas | Improvement | Men | Order | Peace | People | Progress | Struggle | Words |

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

Fighting | Freedom | Means | Worth |

Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin

The Taoist solution was to get oneself in harmony with the Way or Tao of the universe, to learn to move through the world with flexibility and fluidity according to the nature of things, rather than fighting it, ourselves, or other people.

Fighting | Flexibility | Harmony | Nature | People | Universe | World | Flexibility | Learn |

Achmad Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo

Revolution is only true revolution if it is a continuous struggle – not just an external struggle against an enemy, but an inner struggle, fighting and subduing all negative aspects which hinder or do damage to the course of the revolution. In this light, revolution is… a mighty symphony of victory over the enemy and over oneself.

Enemy | Fighting | Light | Revolution | Struggle |