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

Edwin Hubbell Chapin

No more important duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions.

Character | Convictions | Duty | Important | Life | Life | Loyalty | Loyalty | Wisdom |

Douglas L. Edmonds, fully Douglas Lyman Edmonds

How many of us are waiting for the opportunity to do some great thing for the betterment of our community, forgetting that the solution of the problem requires only the active intelligent fulfillment of individual civic duty. The only things which are wrong about our Government are the things which are wrong with you and me. Democracy is never a thing done; it is and always will be a goal to be achieved. It means action, not passive acquiescence in things as they are; it requires alertness to duty, a dynamic faith, a willingness to give for the good of all. It can live only as a result of loyalty and devotion to its principles expressed by daily needs.

Action | Character | Democracy | Devotion | Duty | Dynamic | Faith | Fulfillment | Good | Government | Individual | Loyalty | Loyalty | Means | Opportunity | Principles | Waiting | Will | Wrong | Government |

Nancy Gibbs

Of all ennobling sentiments, patriotism may be the most easily manipulated. On the one hand, it gives powerful expression to what is best in a nation’s character: a commitment to principle, a willingness to sacrifice, a devotion to the community by the choice of the individual. But among its toxic fruits are intolerance, belligerence and blind obedience, perhaps because it blooms most luxuriantly during times of war.

Character | Choice | Commitment | Devotion | Individual | Intolerance | Obedience | Patriotism | Sacrifice | War |

George Horne

Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; patience, governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues the hand, tramples upon temptation, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom; patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the state, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age.

Adversity | Age | Anger | Calumny | Character | Church | Envy | Faith | Forgiveness | Harmony | Humility | Love | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Patience | Peace | Prosperity | Spirit | Temper | Temptation | Unity | Woman | Forgiveness | Forgive | Old | Teacher |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

I look upon the world as my fatherland... I look upon true patriotism as the brotherhood of man and the service of all to all.

Brotherhood | Character | Man | Patriotism | Service | World |

Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

Everything on earth is praised by somebody, criticized by somebody else - but loyalty and truthfulness are praised by all.

Character | Earth | Loyalty | Loyalty |

Gaius Lucilius

Man is loved mainly because of two virtue: courage first, loyalty second.

Character | Courage | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Virtue | Virtue |

Jean de La Bruyère

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

Loyalty | Loyalty | Men | Wisdom |

Robert Burns, aka Rabbie Burns, Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman Poet, Robden of Solway Firth, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard

Architecture has much to teach about the art of staying married, for the basic laws of building are, likewise, the basic laws of the home. A good foundation and balanced proportion are essential. Honest materials are needed, for you cannot build a noble building out of cheap, unworthy materials and you cannot build a home to stand against the stormy winds or worries unless you build it with the simple virtues of faithfulness and loyalty to one another.

Art | Good | Loyalty | Loyalty | Teach | Wisdom | Art |

Philip Caputo

In wartime, the degree of patriotism is directly proportional to distance from the front.

Patriotism | Wisdom |

Henry Giles

It should be the work of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life of the nation to the level of its privileges; to harmonize its general practice with its abstract principles; to reduce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions; to elevate instruction into knowledge; to deepen knowledge into wisdom; to render knowledge and wisdom complete in righteousness; and to make the love of country perfect in the love of man.

Abstract | Ideals | Knowledge | Life | Life | Love | Man | Patriotism | Practice | Principles | Righteousness | Wisdom | Work | Instruction |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The patriotism of antiquity becomes in modern societies a caricature. In antiquity, it developed naturally from the whole condition of a people, its youth, its situation, its culture - with us it is an awkward imitation. Our life demands, not separation from other nations, but constant intercourse; our city life is not that of the ancient city-state.

Antiquity | Culture | Imitation | Life | Life | Nations | Patriotism | People | Wisdom | Youth |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There can be no patriotism without liberty, no liberty without virtue, no virtue without citizens; create citizens, and you have everything you need; without them, you will have nothing but debased slaves, from the rulers of the State downwards. To form citizens is not the work of a day; and in order to have men it is necessary to educate them when they are children.

Children | Day | Liberty | Men | Need | Nothing | Order | Patriotism | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Oscar S. Straus, fully Oscar Solomon Straus

There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization.

Civilization | Duty | Mankind | Patriotism | Trust | Wisdom |

Julius Seelye Bixler

Religion is devoted and loyal commitment to the best that reason and insight can discover. The liberal understands what loyalty means as the authoritarian never can.

Commitment | Insight | Loyalty | Loyalty | Means | Reason | Religion |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

True patriotism doesn’t exclude an understanding of the patriotism of others.

Patriotism | Understanding |