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

Horace Bushnell

Respectable sin is, in principle, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it to the bitter end, and there is ignominy as well as guilt eternal.

Character | Crime | Eternal | Guilt | Ignominy | Mother | Sin |

Willard Gaylen

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential - generosity, service, self-sacrificed, unselfishness and duty.

Character | Duty | Emotions | Generosity | Guilt | Qualities | Self | Service | Shame | Society |

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Fear is the energy to do our best in a new situation. Guilt is the energy for personal change. Unworthiness keeps us on track. Hurt feelings remind us how much we care. Anger is the energy for change. Discouragement reveals our courage.

Anger | Care | Change | Character | Courage | Energy | Fear | Feelings | Guilt |

Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

He who within his breast meditates a crime has all the guilt of the deed.

Character | Crime | Guilt |

Joshua L. Liebman, fully Joshua Loth Liebman

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension; when he does not torment himself with childish guilt feelings, but avoids tragic adult sins; when he postpones immediate pleasures for the sake of long-term values... Our generation must be inspired to search for that maturity which will manifest itself in the qualities of tenacity, dependability, co-operativeness and the inner drive to work and sacrifice for a nobler future of mankind.

Character | Feelings | Future | Guilt | Life | Life | Mankind | Qualities | Sacrifice | Search | Tenacity | Will | Work |

Joshua Lederberg

The human condition suffers from the fact that our sins and our guilt are cumulative; we may assuage, we forgive, but have no way to forget.

Character | Guilt |

Jean Racine, baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine

There may be guilt when there is too much virtue.

Character | Guilt | Virtue | Virtue |

Shantananda Saraswathi, fully Swami Shantananda Saraswathi, born Chandrashekar

Fear is attachment to security... Guilt and fear arise from a conviction you have accepted about yourself.

Character | Fear | Guilt | Security |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

It is rascally to steal a purse, daring to steal a million, and proof of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.

Blame | Character | Daring | Greatness | Guilt |

M. Beer

Man's freedom is his inner worth; His guilt alone can rob him of it.

Freedom | Guilt | Man | Wisdom | Worth |

William Blackstone, fully Sir William Blackstone

The suicide is guilt of a double offence; one spiritual, in invading the prerogative of the Almighty... the other temporal, against the king.

Guilt | Suicide | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Sin with the multitude, and your responsibility and guilt are as great and as truly personal, as if you alone had done the wrong.

Guilt | Responsibility | Sin | Wisdom | Wrong |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

To be sure, if it is the purpose of educators to stifle the child’s power of independent thought as early as possible, in order to produce that ‘good behavior’ which is so highly prized, they cannot do better than deceive children in sexual matters and intimidate them by religious means. The stronger characters will, it is true, withstand these influences; they will become rebels against the authority of their parents and later against every other form of authority. When children do not receive the explanations for which they turn to their elders, they go on tormenting themselves in secret with the problem, and produce attempts at solution in which the truth they have guessed is mixed up in the most extraordinary way with grotesque inventions; or else they whisper confidences to each other which, because of the sense of guilt in the youthful inquirers, stamp everything sexual as horrible and disgusting.

Authority | Behavior | Better | Children | Good | Guilt | Means | Order | Parents | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Receive | Sense | Thought | Truth | Will | Wisdom | Thought |

Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.

Blame | Daring | Fortune | Greatness | Guilt | Wisdom |

Michael Beer

Man’s freedom is his inner worth... His guilt alone can rob him of it.

Freedom | Guilt | Man | Worth |

Carol Adrienne

It is counterproductive to assume we have created every misfortune in our life, as if we had made a conscious intention to do so. That kind of thinking leads to guilt and despair. Nevertheless, a sincere willingness to acknowledge that we have certain beliefs that have created our situation will enrich our approach to working through obstacles.

Despair | Guilt | Intention | Life | Life | Misfortune | Thinking | Will | Misfortune |

Joe Boot

To live by the code of “do as you please regardless” is to become a prisoner of your own moral corruption. It is to be troubled by guilt and tormented by the inconsistency of living contrary to the demands of your own conscience and moral nature. You simply cannot be satisfied while ignoring any part of your nature.

Conscience | Corruption | Guilt | Inconsistency | Nature |