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

Yitzchok Waldshein

Regardless of where a person actually is physically, he is really where his thoughts are. A person constantly has a choice to think elevated and uplifting thoughts or negative, self-destructive thoughts. How old you feel is greatly dependent on your attitude about yourself. Elderly people can increase their vitality and vigor by considering themselves young.

Character | Choice | People | Self | Old | Think |

Brooke Foss Westcott

How many people ever consider that the lack of certain qualities - such as balance, common sense, tranquillity - affect the physical state of the human body?... Did you ever hear of people being sick because they hated someone? This is not uncommon.

Balance | Body | Character | Common Sense | People | Qualities | Sense | Tranquility |

Brooke Astor, (née Russell, previously Kuser and Marshall) also known as Mrs Vincent Astor

It was not until I was forty that I was able to go into a room and say to myself, 'What do I think of these people?' Before that, I always thought, 'What do these people think of me?'

People | Thought | Wisdom | Think |

Berthold Auerbach

What people will say - in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere.

People | Tyranny | Vision | Will | Wisdom | Words | World |

John Wesley

Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.

Character | Passion | Prejudice | Reason | Religion | World | Govern |

Sherwood Anderson

I have sometimes a queer mystical feeling as regards the attitude of people in general. Just as there are physical diseases, so there are diseases of feelings. In a little town like this I feel that on some days everyone goes about hating everyone else. Then something happens and a good feeling comes back. I think the whole of mankind must be like that.

Feelings | Good | Little | Mankind | Mystical | People | Wisdom | Think |

Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody, rather than for somebody.

Men | People | Wisdom |

Brooks Atkinson, fully Justin Brooks Atkinson

Materialism is decadent and degenerate only if the spirit of the nation has withered and if individual people are so unimaginative that they wallow in it.

Individual | Materialism | People | Spirit | Wisdom |

Paul Tyner

For this cause he came into the world; that he might be a witness to the truth; a living, unimpeachable witness of the truth that shall make us free - the truth of man’s religion (reunion) with God, through absolute spiritual self consciousness - with God - with the Eternal, Omnipotent and Omniscient Source and Fountain of Life, “in whom we live and move and have our being,” without whom we are not!

Absolute | Cause | Character | Consciousness | Eternal | God | Life | Life | Man | Religion | Self | Truth | Witness | World | God |

Hotzoas Chochmah Umassar

A wise man said, “Most people do not feel bad because they lack wisdom; they feel bad because people say they lack wisdom.”

Character | Man | People | Wisdom | Wise |

Theodore H. White, fully Theodore Harold White

Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them - this is of the essence of leadership.

Character | Man | People | Power | Responsibility |

Marshall Wingfield

Prejudice is not held against people because they have evil qualities. Evil qualities are imputed to people because prejudices are held against them.

Character | Evil | People | Prejudice | Qualities |

Israel Abrahams

Mostly, reform in religion is rational. But if the religion be already too rational, reform must be emotional.

Reform | Religion | Wisdom |

Franklin Pierce Adams, pen name F.P.A.

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.

Experience | People | Time | Wisdom | Trouble |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

The true religion commands us to put away all disquietude of heart, and agitation of mind, and also all commotions and tempests of the soul.

Agitation | Heart | Mind | Religion | Soul | Wisdom |

Edward Noyes Westcott

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.

Character | Good | Means | People |

James Q. Wilson

To say that people have a moral sense is not the same thing as saying that they are innately good. A moral sense must compete with other senses that are natural to humans - the desire to survive, acquire possessions, indulge in sex, or accumulate power - in short, with self-interest narrowly defined. How that struggle is resolved will differ depending on our character, our circumstances, and the cultural and political tendencies of the day. But saying that a moral sense exists is the same thing as saying that humans, by their nature, are potentially good.

Character | Circumstances | Day | Desire | Good | Nature | People | Possessions | Power | Self | Self-interest | Sense | Struggle | Will |

James R. Adams

The super-businessmen have to a large extent failed to see that the need for morality in the people they practically govern is greater than ever, because social relations are infinitely more delicate and complex in adjustment than heretofore.

Morality | Need | People | Wisdom | Govern |

Mary Hunter Austin

Ride your emotions as a scallop rides the waves; don't get upset among them. There are people who enjoy getting swamped emotionally just as, incredibly, there are people who enjoy getting drunk.

Emotions | People | Wisdom |