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

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

Character | Man | Men | Opinion | Rest | Value |

Walter Bagehot

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

Character | Influence | Men | Obedience | Opinion | Public | Wisdom | Words | Think |

William Blake

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Character | Man | Mind | Opinion |

William Ellery Channing

The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the chief wall of defence around property and life. With the progress of society, this power of opinion is taking the place of arms.

Character | Judgment | Life | Life | Men | Opinion | Power | Progress | Property | Society | World |

Euripedes NULL

No man on earth is truly free. All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

Character | Conscience | Earth | Fear | Man | Money | Necessity | Opinion | Public |

Alexandre Dumas, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie

Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit.

Character | Love | Suspicion | Wisdom |

Robert Hall

Worldly ambition is founded on pride or envy, but emulation, or laudable ambition, is actually founded in humility; for it evidently implies that we have a low opinion of our present attainments, and think it necessary to be advanced.

Ambition | Character | Envy | Humility | Opinion | Present | Pride | Ambition | Think |

Sarah Grand, pseudonymn of Frances Elizabeth Bellenden Clarke McFall

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than in what they make us see in ourselves.

Character | Opinion | People |

August von Kotzebue, fully August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue

A heart once poisoned by suspicion has no longer room for love.

Character | Heart | Love | Suspicion |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

Character | Comfort | Opinion | Thought |

Walter Savage Landor

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom. but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

Character | Folly | Suspicion | Wisdom |

Katherine Mansfield, pseudonymn of Kathleen Beauchamp, Mrs. J. M. Murry

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Care | Character | Earth | Opinion | Risk | Truth |

Walter Savage Landor

We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offense to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silence, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.

Business | Character | Diversity | Jealousy | Leisure | Offense | Opinion | Preference | Silence | Society | Will | Society | Business |

Walter Savage Landor

There is no outward sign of politeness which has not a deep, moral reason. Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his own image. There is a politeness of the heart akin to love, from which springs the easiest politeness of outward behavior... Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom, but the want of it always leaves room for the suspicion of folly.

Behavior | Character | Folly | Heart | Love | Reason | Suspicion | Wisdom | Politeness |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.

Borrowing | Care | Character | Opinion |

José Joaquín de Olmedo, fully José Joaquín de Olmedo y Maruri

They set the slave free, striking off his chains. Then he was as much of a slave as ever. He was still chained to servility. He was still manacled to indolence and sloth, he was still bound by fear and superstition, by ignorance suspicion and savagery. His slavery was not in the chains, but in himself. They can only set free men free. And there is no need of that. Free men set themselves free.

Character | Fear | Ignorance | Indolence | Men | Need | Slavery | Sloth | Superstition | Suspicion |