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

Gersonides, abbreviation of first letters as RalBaG from Levi ben Gerson NULL

A peace that comes from fear and not from the heart is the opposite of peace.

Fear | Heart | Peace | Wisdom |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

This age of childhood, in which the sense of shame is unknown, seems a paradise when we look back upon it alter, and paradise itself is nothing but the mass-phantasy of the childhood of the individual. This is why in paradise men are naked and unashamed, until the moment arrives when shame and fear awaken; expulsion follows, and sexual life and cultural development begin.

Age | Childhood | Fear | Individual | Life | Life | Men | Nothing | Paradise | Sense | Shame | Wisdom |

Benjamin Franklin

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."

Better | Fear | Happy | Little | Lord | Man | Money | Nature | Nothing | Wants | Will | Wisdom | Wise | Trouble |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

Man | Respect | Ridicule | Right | Thinking | Wisdom | Respect |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

Death | Fear | Life | Life | Wisdom | Value |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death as things divine.

Death | Disgrace | Humility | Mockery | Poverty | Religion | Reverence | Suffering | Wisdom |

S. G. Goodrich, fully Samuel Griswold Goodrich, pen name Peter Praley

Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue, and renders a man, in the pursuit of defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.

Consciousness | Contempt | Courage | Defense | Fear | Man | Opposition | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

David Hume

To be happy, the temperament must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy, is real riches; one to fear and sorrow is real poverty.

Fear | Happy | Hope | Joy | Melancholy | Poverty | Riches | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Thomas Hobbes

The end of worship amongst men is power. For where a man seeth another worshipped, he supposeth him powerful, and is the readier to obey him; which makes his power greater. But God has no ends: the worship we do him proceeds from our duty and is directed according to our capacity by those rules of honor that reason dictateth to be done by the weak to the more potent men, in hope of benefit, for fear of damage, or in thankfulness for good already received from them.

Capacity | Duty | Ends | Fear | God | Good | Honor | Hope | Man | Men | Power | Reason | Thankfulness | Wisdom | Worship | God |

David Hume

Never speak by superlatives; for in so doing you will be likely to wound either truth or prudence. Exaggeration is neither thoughtful, wise, nor safe. It is a proof of the weakness of the understanding, or the want of discernment of him that utters it, so that even when he speaks the truth, he soon finds it is received with partial, or even utter disbelief.

Disbelief | Discernment | Exaggeration | Prudence | Prudence | Safe | Truth | Understanding | Weakness | Will | Wisdom | Wise |

Soozi Holbeche

I had a "near death experience" and remember thinking, "If only people knew what it was like to die, they wouldn't be afraid." I reached a point at which a voice began to ask me if I thought I'd completed what I'd come to do. was I going to leave my son, then age three, behind? There was no sense of threat or coercion. An absolute acceptance that whatever I did was all right, but pointing out that the moment of choice was now. The relief and release from the fear of dying changed my life. The reminder that "I am not my body" freed me to live my life in a different way. The understanding that no matter what is going on in our bodies, the essence of who we are is unaffected; this wisdom has enabled me to help other see their bodies in a different way. To see the body in illness not as an enemy, but as a faithful fried, programmed by; the soul to react in that exact way. To see illness as a confrontation in the physical of what one is reluctant to confront on the mental or emotional levels. In other words, a message, a communication, a time to listen and therefore a unique and powerful opportunity for transformation.

Absolute | Acceptance | Age | Body | Choice | Coercion | Death | Enemy | Experience | Fear | Life | Life | Opportunity | People | Right | Sense | Soul | Thinking | Thought | Time | Understanding | Unique | Wisdom | Words | Thought |

David Hume

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

Fear | Hope | Joy | Poverty | Riches | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Victor Hugo

Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.

Care | Faith | Fear | Will | Wisdom | Work |