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

Euripedes NULL

Better to die in action than sitting still.

Action | Better | Wisdom |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Religion is action not diction.

Action | Religion | Wisdom |

Henry Ford

Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.

Action | Disease | Idleness | Mind | Thinking | Wisdom | Work | Think |

Hermetica NULL

God then, is the source of all things; the Aeon is the power of God; and the work of the Aeon is the Kosmos which never came into being, but is ever coming into being, by the action of the Aeon, and that which olds the universe together is the Aeon.

Action | God | Power | Universe | Wisdom | Work |

Edward Howard Griggs

We crave freedom, but freedom is never an end in itself; it is a means to be used for further aims. Its value lies in the extent to which it can assist the development of life. To possess freedom with no life for which to use it is but the bitterest farce. Life never means complete freedom, and every action and relation is an added bond. Life is to be attained, not through a non-moral freedom of caprice, but through a glad welcoming and loyal fulfillment of every bond and obligation which comes in the daily path of life.

Action | Aims | Freedom | Fulfillment | Life | Life | Means | Obligation | Wisdom | Value |

S. G. Goodrich, fully Samuel Griswold Goodrich, pen name Peter Praley

Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue, and renders a man, in the pursuit of defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.

Consciousness | Contempt | Courage | Defense | Fear | Man | Opposition | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Oliver J. Hart, fully Bishop Oliver J. Hart

Give us the fortitude to endure the things which cannot be changed, and the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from the other.

Change | Courage | Fortitude | Wisdom |

Heinrich Heine

The men of action are, after all, only the unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

Action | Men | Thought | Wisdom |

Thomas Hughes

If we look abroad upon the great multitude of mankind, and endeavor to trace out the principles of action in every individual, it will, I think, seem highly probably that ambition runs through the whole species, and that every man, in proportion to the vigor of his complexion, is more or less actuated by it.

Action | Ambition | Individual | Man | Mankind | Principles | Will | Wisdom | Ambition |

David Hume

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in all varieties of circumstances and situations, and furnishing us with materials from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behavior.

Action | Behavior | Circumstances | History | Human nature | Mankind | Men | Nature | Nothing | Principles | Wisdom |

Herbert Hoover, fully Herbert Clark Hoover

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body, the producers and consumers themselves.

Action | Body | Depression | Wisdom |

David Hume

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

Action | Age | Applause | Censure | Life | Life | Man | Wisdom | Wise |

David Hume

If suicide be supposed a crime, it is only cowardice can impel us to it. If it be no crime, both prudence and courage should engage us to rid ourselves at once of existence when it becomes a burden.

Courage | Cowardice | Crime | Existence | Prudence | Prudence | Suicide | Wisdom |

Richard Hooker

Reason is the director of man's will, discovering in action what is good, for the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason.

Action | Good | Man | Reason | Right | Will | Wisdom |

Harold S. Kahm

Chain reaction is popularly associated with the atomic bomb, but it is no less gigantic a force in your daily life. Every word you speak, every action you perform sets up a chain of reaction that can end in a damaging explosion or a shower of blessings.

Action | Atomic bomb | Blessings | Force | Life | Life | Wisdom |