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

Richard Livingstone, fully Sir RIchard Winn Livingstone

And neither mind nor character can be made without a spiritual element. This is just the element that has grown weak, where it has not perished, in our education, and therefore in our civilization, with disastrous results.

Character | Civilization | Education | Mind |

Raymond Moley, fully Raymond Charles Moley

The most vital test of a man’s character is not how he behaves after success, but how he sustains defeat.

Character | Defeat | Man | Success |

Wayne Muller

Four simple questions have shaped the spiritual journeys of pilgrims and seekers for thousands of years. These questions enable us to gently awaken the four fundamental realms of inner life: Identity, Love, Daily Practice, and Kindness. (1) Who am I? We have within us an essential nature that is whole and unbroken. (2) What do I love? (3) How shall I live, knowing I will die? Every moment of life is a precious gift. (4) What is my gift to the family of the earth?

Earth | Family | Kindness | Knowing | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Practice | Will |

John Naber, fully John Phillips Naber

It’s the tough decisions that really test our character, for character is revealed when the price of doing the right thing is more than we want to pay.

Character | Price | Right |

Will Rogers, fully William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers

Lead your life so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip!

Family | Life | Life |

Sisters of the Immaculate Heart NULL

What the world desperately needs is bridges, individuals and groups, like Christ himself, put an end to all the distances which divide men and which hinder their access to truth, dignity, and full human development. This is another way of saying that the world needs community; it needs models of community to convince it that the diverse and warring elements in the human family can be reconciled.

Dignity | Family | Men | Truth | World |

Samuel Smiles

To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial.

Character | Temptation | Work | World | Worth |

Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappily in its own way.

Family | Happy |

Alan Christopher Warren

There are not so many lessons in glad times. Adversity is by far the better teacher. Adversity will be a part of almost all our lives. So it is not in escaping adversity, but in answering it, that our character is defined.

Adversity | Better | Character | Will |

Pachacutec Inca Yupanqui, sometimes referred to as Pachacuti

Governors must never forget that he who is unable to run his own house and family is still less competent to be entrusted with public matters.

Family | Public |

Philippa Foot, fully Philippa Ruth Foot, née Bosanquet

One of the things a wise man knows and a foolish man does not is that such things as social position, wealth, and the good opinion of the world, are too dearly bought at the cost of health or friendship or family ties.

Cost | Family | Good | Health | Man | Opinion | Position | Wealth | Wise | World | Friendship |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world's torrent.

Character | World | Talent |

Alan Morton Dershowitz

In deciding what course of action is moral, you should act as if there were no God. You should act as if there were no threat of earthly punishment or reward. You should be a person of good character because it is right to be such a person.

Action | Character | God | Good | Punishment | Reward | Right |