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

Robert Southey

A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge as stubborn temper to happiness.

Character | Knowledge | Little | Mind | Temper | Wisdom |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

There is little pleasure in the world that is true and sincere besides the pleasure of doing our duty and doing good. I am sure no other is comparable to this.

Character | Duty | Good | Little | Pleasure | World |

James R. Adams

Man is a creature of impulse, emotion, action rather than reason. Reason is a very late development in the world of living creatures, most of whom, as far as we know, get along admirably in daily life without it.

Action | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Reason | Wisdom | World |

Washington Allston

Reverence is an ennobling sentiment; it is felt to be degrading only by the vulgar mind, which would escape the sense of its own littleness by elevating itself into an antagonist of what is above it. He that has no pleasure in looking up is not fit so much as to look down.

Mind | Pleasure | Reverence | Sense | Sentiment | Wisdom |

Richard Whately

Do you want to know the man against whom you have most reason to guard yourself? Your looking-glass will give you a very fair likeness of his face.

Character | Man | Reason | Will |

Edward Wigglesworth

Common opinions often conflict with common sense; for reason in most minds is no match for prejudices, a hydra whose heads grow faster than they can be cut off.

Character | Common Sense | Reason | Sense |

George Matthew Adams

One reason why men and women lose their heads so often is that they use them so little!... The more the mind is used the more flexible it becomes, and the more it takes upon itself new interests.

Little | Men | Mind | Reason | Wisdom |

John Wesley

Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.

Character | Passion | Prejudice | Reason | Religion | World | Govern |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

This is a property of the rational soul, love of one’s neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus then right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice.

Justice | Law | Love | Modesty | Nothing | Property | Reason | Right | Soul | Truth | Wisdom | Value |