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

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

Lofty words cannot construct an alliance or maintain it; only concrete deeds can do that.

Deeds | Wisdom | Words | Deeds |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into the primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.

Ego | Soul | Will | Wisdom |

Charles Kingsley

Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say: "I have made one human being at least a little wiser, or a little happier, or at least a little better this day."

Beauty | Better | Glory | God | Little | Man | Music | Sacred | Wisdom | God |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Volatility of words is carelessness in actions; words are the wings of actions.

Wisdom | Words |

J. Martin Klotsche

Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning "between" and legere meaning "to choose." An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned "to choose between." He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.

Arrogance | Better | Compassion | Confidence | Cruelty | Evil | Fear | Forbearance | Gentleness | Good | Hate | Ignorance | Intelligence | Intolerance | Love | Meaning | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Words |

Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

Watch a man in times of ... adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.

Adversity | Heart | Man | Truth | Wisdom | Words |

John Locke

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Ideas | Wisdom | Words | World |

F. D. Maurice, fully John Frederick Denison "F.D." Maurice

Acts are nothing except as they are fruits of a state, except as they indicate what the man is; words are nothing except as they express a mind or purpose.

Man | Mind | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | Words |

Felix Neff

When a pump is frequently used, the water pours out at the first stroke, because it is high; but, if the pump has not been used for a long time, the water gets low, and when you want it you must pump a long while; and the water comes only after great efforts. It is so with prayer. If we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray, and desire and words are always ready; but, if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the well gets low.

Desire | Little | Neglect | Prayer | Time | Wisdom | Words | Circumstance |

Maurice Nicoll

We need to get rid of some false meanings that we give to the words eternal and eternity. The psychological idea connected with eternal life cannot be limited to the view that man is changed into another state at death, merely by the act of dying. It would be far more correct to say that it refers, first of all, to some change that man is capable of undergoing now, in this life, and one that is connected with the attainment of unity. The modern term psychology means literally the science of the soul. But in former times there actually existed a science of the soul based upon the idea that man is an imperfect state but capable of reaching a further state... No totality-act is possible; the will is separate from knowledge, the feeling from intellect.

Attainment | Change | Death | Eternal | Eternity | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Means | Need | Psychology | Science | Soul | Unity | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Youssou N’Dour

The meaning of life is to be found in our surroundings and in our relationships... Life is meaningful when we respect the best of tradition while still loving innovation... Life is fulfilling when we marry pride with tolerance, when our deeds and our words are nourished by hope and by realism, when the wisdom of the ages catches the passionate eye of youth. Life on this earth in our time is, above all, a parade of interdependent peoples, interdependent ideas, interdependent solutions. We are all artists of the possible - and dreamers of that which is just now beyond our reach, but may not be tomorrow.

Deeds | Earth | Hope | Ideas | Innovation | Interdependent | Life | Life | Meaning | Pride | Respect | Time | Tomorrow | Tradition | Wisdom | Words | Youth | Deeds | Respect |

William Mountford

The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into “the valley of the shadow of death.” But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.

Death | Faith | Genius | Glory | Life | Life | Light | Man | Wisdom |

Douglas Meador

A way to weigh words is to keep them in the heart until they are gentle and until the lips will speak them softly.

Heart | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Margaret Percival

Night steals on; and the day takes its farewell, like the words of a departing friend, or the last tone of hallowed music in a minister’s aisles, heard when it floats along the shade of elms; in the still place of graves.

Day | Friend | Music | Wisdom | Words |

Francis Quarles

Silence is the highest wisdom of a fool as speech is the greatest trial of a wise man. If thou wouldst be known as wise, let thy words show thee so; if thou doubt thy words, let thy silence feign thee so. It is not a greater point of wisdom to discover knowledge than to hide ignorance.

Doubt | Ignorance | Knowledge | Man | Silence | Speech | Wisdom | Wise | Words | Trial |

Francis Quarles

If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confine thee. He that thinks he can never speak enough, may easily speak too much. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.

Enough | Wisdom | Words |