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

George Santayana

Two protecting deities, indeed, like two sober friends supporting a drunkard, flank human folly and keep it within bounds. One of these deities is Punishment and the other Agreement.

Folly | Punishment | Friends |

George Santayana

Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another; people and friends in spots.

Mind | People | Friends |

Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Defeat | Approval | Friends |

Herman Melville

Amity itself can only be maintained by reciprocal respect, and true friends are punctilious equals.

Respect | Friends |

Henry Ward Beecher

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness - or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

Future | God | Good | God | Friends | Happiness |

Homer NULL

One should fear the envy of relatives and friends more than the envy of enemies.

Envy | Fear | Friends |

Jennie Jerome Churchill

Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.

Light | Friends |

James Bryant Conant

Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.

Jealousy | Motives | Will | Friends |

James Goldsmith

Tolerance is a tremendous virtue, but the immediate neighbors of tolerance are apathy and weakness.

Apathy | Virtue | Virtue | Weakness |

John Burroughs

If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends and nature; and the greatest of these, at least the most constant and always at hand, is nature.

Books | Life | Life | Nature | Friends |

John Burroughs

I still find each day too short for all thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I lie the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and wonder of the world.

Beauty | Books | Day | Mind | Wonder | World | Beauty | Friends |

John Donne

Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak.

Friends |

Karl Menninger, fully Karl Augustus Menninger

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

Force | Listening | Friends |

Lewis Mumford

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.

Friends |

Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.

Friends | Old |

Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway… You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

Adventure | Beauty | Challenge | Duty | Good | Happy | Life | Life | Luck | Opportunity | People | Play | Promise | Serenity | Sorrow | Struggle | Tragedy | Will | Friends |

Ned Rorem

Sooner or later you've heard all your best friends have to say. Then comes the tolerance of real love.

Love | Friends |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think.

Better | Freedom | Hate | Reason | Thought |

Pindar NULL

When men succeed, even their neighbors think them wise.

Men | Wise | Think |

Plato NULL

If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful and good; but if you are not wise, neither father, nor mother, nor kindred; nor any one else, will be your friends.

Father | Good | Men | Mother | Will | Wise | Friends |