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

Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz

The honor-seeker does not study wisdom to become wiser. Rather his goal is to show off how wise he is. This is an attribute of a fool.

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Character | Honor | Study | Wisdom | Wise |

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Euripedes NULL

Everything that depends on necessity is its slave in wise men's eyes.

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Character | Men | Necessity | Wise |

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Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz

It is a wise man’s good sense to be slow to anger, and his glory to pass over a transgression.

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Anger | Character | Glory | Good | Man | Sense | Wise |

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Tyron Edwards

Quiet and sincere sympathy is often the most welcome and efficient consolation to the afflicted. Said a wise man to one in deep sorrow, "I did not come to comfort you; God only can do that; but I did come to say how deeply and tenderly I feel for you in your affliction."

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Affliction | Character | Comfort | Consolation | God | Man | Quiet | Sorrow | Sympathy | Wise | God |

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Diogenes Laërtius, aka "Diogenes the Cynic"

The wise do all things well.

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Character | Wisdom | Wise |

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William Ewart Gladstone

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.

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Body | Character | Energy | Life | Life | Man | Wise | Work |

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Owen Feltham

Works without faith are like a fish without water, it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand; faith is the foundation, and every good action is as a stone laid.

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Action | Character | Faith | Good | Wants |

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Owen Feltham

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.

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Character | Man | Mind | Praise | Wise |

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Henry Fielding

As a great part of the uneasiness of matrimony arises from mere trifles, it would be wise in every young married man to enter into an agreement with his wife, that in all disputes of this kind the party who was most convinced they were right should always surrender the victory. By which means both would be more forward to give up the cause.

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Cause | Character | Man | Matrimony | Means | Right | Surrender | Trifles | Wife | Wise |

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Lowell Fillmore

The one and only formative power given to man is thought. By his thinking he not only makes character, but body and affairs, for "as he thinketh within himself, so is he."

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Body | Character | Man | Power | Thinking | Thought |

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Harry Emerson Fosdick

It is cynicism and fear that freezes life: it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free.

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Character | Cynicism | Faith | Fear | Life | Life | Wisdom |

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Thomas Hobbes

Belief and unbelief never follow men’s commands. Faith is a gift from God which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menaces of torture.

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Belief | Character | Faith | God | Man | Men | Promise | Torture | Unbelief | God |

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Aaron Hill

There is no merit where there is no trial; and, till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, faith for falsehood.

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Character | Experience | Faith | Falsehood | Merit | Strength |

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Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

As a wise man in time of peace prepares for war.

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Character | Man | Peace | Time | War | Wise |

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

The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.

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Character | Faith | Power | Will |

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Zane Grey Orig. name Pearl Grey

To bear up under loss; to fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; to be victor over anger, to smile when tears are close; to resist disease and evil men and base instincts; to hate hate and to love love; to go on when it would seem good to die; to look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be - that is what any man can do, and be great.

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Anger | Bitterness | Character | Defeat | Disease | Evil | Faith | Good | Grief | Hate | Love | Man | Men | Smile | Tears | Weakness |

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John Hay, fully John Milton Hay

Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns. Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I.

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Character | Wise | World |

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