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

William Gilmore Simms

Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.

Action | Better | Character | Corruption | Death |

Pooja Natarajan

To achieve something great in the world you need Passion To fulfill vision, a great leader’s courage comes from Passion Whatever it may be, you must find your Passion If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins Follow your passion and success will follow you! Never underestimate the power of passion Without passion religion is spiritless Without Passion history is meaningless Without Passion art is useless Follow your passion and success will follow you! When you take up a mission with passion There are no dreams too large No innovation unimaginable No frontiers beyond reach Follow your passion and success will follow you! Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel Our reason is the pilot that steers her Without winds the vessel would not move Without a pilot she would be lost Follow your passion and success will follow you! There is no end and there is no beginning There is only the passion of life Passion is universal humanity Passion is the genesis of genius Follow your passion and success will follow you!

Art | Character | Courage | Dreams | History | Innovation | Mission | Need | Passion | Power | Reason | Religion | Success | Will | World | Art |

Logan Pearsall Smith

What is more mortifying than to feel that you've missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

Character | Courage |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.

Action | Character | Method | World |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.

Character | Courage |

William Graham Sumner

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found the courage to say that there is none.

Character | Courage | Men | Happiness |

Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to preserve. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends and soften to us our enemies. Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

Character | Courage | Death | Fortune | Grace | Mind | Peril | Quiet | Strength | Friends |

Leland Stanford, fully Amasa Leland Stanford

Count the day lost, whose low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done.

Action | Character | Day |

Tobias Smollett, fully Tobias George Smollett

True courage scorns to vent her prowess in a storm of words; and to the valiant action speaks alone.

Action | Character | Courage | Prowess | Words |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

When we have practiced good action awhile, they become easy; when they are easy, we take pleasure in them; when they please us, we do them frequently; and then, by frequency of act, they grow into a habit.

Action | Character | Good | Habit | Pleasure |

John P. Webster

The chiefest action for a man of spirit is never to be out of action; the soul was never put into the body to stand still.

Action | Body | Character | Man | Soul | Spirit |

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 |

H. W. Andrews

While an open mind is priceless, it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man unfit for a position of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where more and more of your decisions will be right. After all, it is better to be right 51 percent of the time and get something done, than it is to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision.

Action | Better | Consideration | Courage | Decision | Experience | Failure | Fear | Habit | Judgment | Man | Mind | Nothing | Position | Question | Responsibility | Right | Time | Will | Wisdom | Failure |

William Walsh

A generous action is its own reward.

Action | Character | Reward |