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

E. W. Howe, fully Edgar Watson Howe

The greatest humiliation in life is to work hard on something from which you expect great appreciation, and then fail to get it.

Appreciation | Character | Life | Life | Work |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Relationships can become a doorway into a new life - surrendering, growing, giving, creating - or a revolving door which gives us movement without progress and deposits us back into ourselves, not as we could become but as we are.

Character | Giving | Life | Life | Progress |

William James

We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient realization of poverty could have meant; the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul, the manlier indifference, the paving our way by what we are and not by what we have, the right to fling away our life at any moment irresponsibly, - the more athletic trim, in short, the fighting shape.

Character | Fighting | Indifference | Life | Life | Poverty | Power | Right | Soul |

Victor Hugo

To live a life which is a perpetual falsehood is to suffer unknown tortures.

Character | Falsehood | Life | Life |

Pinchos Hurwitz

A large amount of physical pain and suffering is caused by one’s thoughts and behaviors. The desire for food causes people to overeat and consume food that is harmful to their health. Envy, anger, and honor-seeking lead to diseases of the heart, high blood pressure, nervous tension and excessive stress. Moreover, even when you pain is basically caused by physical symptoms, your mental attitude towards the pain can greatly increase or decrease the actual amount of suffering you experience. The pain you suffer from illnesses and injuries is frequently more psychological than physical. A person who learns to master a calm and serene attitude towards life trains himself to tolerate physical pain and the actual suffering is greatly lessened.

Anger | Character | Desire | Envy | Experience | Health | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Pain | People | Suffering |

James Henry Leigh Hunt

It is our daily duty to consider that in all circumstances of life, pleasurable, painful, or otherwise, the conduct of every human being affects, more or less, the happiness of others, especially of those in the same house; and that, as life is made up, for the most part, not of great occasions, but of small everyday moments, it is the giving to those moments their greatest amount of peace, pleasantness, and security, that contributes most to the sum of human good. Be peaceable. Be cheerful. Be true.

Character | Circumstances | Conduct | Duty | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Peace | Security | Happiness |

William James

I [have] often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one.

Argument | Character | Existence | Life | Life | Man |

Victor Hugo

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Character | Courage | God | Life | Life | Patience | Peace | Wisdom | God |

David Hume

The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Universe |

Adolf Ellegård Jensen

It is the common mark of all animal life that it can maintain itself only by destroying life.

Character | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón

The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them.

Character | Desire | Haste | Life | Life | Means | Right | Time |

Victor Hugo

The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.

Character | Life | Life | Happiness |

William Ralph Inge

As a rule, the game of life is worth playing, but the struggle is the prize.

Character | Life | Life | Rule | Struggle | Worth |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

I began to accept that the meaning of life, even the purpose of the pain that accompanies it, would be found not in the question I asked of life, but in the questions life asked of me.

Character | Life | Life | Meaning | Pain | Purpose | Purpose | Question |

Victor Hugo

He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out the plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of life which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.

Chance | Character | Day | Life | Life | Plan | Time | Will |

Victor Hugo

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

Character | Life | Life | Time | Waste | Wisdom |

Ron and Mary Hulnick, formally H. Ronald Hulnick and

Because I am the only person I will have a relationship with all of my life, I choose: To love myself the way I am now. To always acknowledge that I am enough just the way I am. To love, honor and cherish myself. To be my own best friend. To be the person I would like to spend the rest of my life with. To always take care of myself so that I can take care of others. To always grow, develop and share my love and life.

Care | Character | Enough | Friend | Honor | Life | Life | Love | Relationship | Rest | Will |

Frederick Dan Huntington

There’ll be no night in Heav’n, In that blest world above; No anxious toil, no weary hours; For labor there is love. There’ll be no sorrow there, There’ll be no sorrow there, In Heav’n above, where all is love, There’ll be no sorrow there. There’ll be no grief in Heav’n, For life is one glad day, And tears are those of former things Which all have passed way. There’ll be no sin in Heav’n; Behold that blessèd throng, All holy in their spotless robes, All holy in their song.

Action | Character | Conduct | Devotion | Faith | Good | Grief | Labor | Life | Life | Love | Sin | Sorrow | Suffering | Tears | Work | World | Blessed |