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

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison to the second. By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal. This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind.

Acquaintance | Character | Difficulty | Law | Life | Life | Man | Mankind | Nature | Power | Will |

Jane Porter

A sincere acquaintance with ourselves teaches us humility; and from humility springs that benevolence which compassionates the transgressors we condemn, and prevents the punishments we inflict from themselves partaking of crime, in being rather the wreaking of revenge than the chastisements of virtue.

Acquaintance | Benevolence | Character | Crime | Humility | Revenge | Virtue | Virtue |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

With the gain of knowledge, connect the habit of imparting it. This increases mental wealth by putting it in circulation; and it enhances the value of our knowledge to ourselves, not only in its depth, confirmation and readiness for use, but in that acquaintance with human nature, that self-command, and that reaction of moral training upon ourselves, which are above all price.

Acquaintance | Character | Habit | Human nature | Knowledge | Nature | Price | Self | Training | Wealth | Value |

William De Witt Hyde

Education: To be at home in all lands and ages; to count Nature as a familiar acquaintance and Art an intimate friend; to gain a standard for the appreciation of other men's work and the criticism of one's own; to carry the keys of the world's library in one's pocket, and feel its resources behind one in whatever task he undertakes; to make hosts of friends among the men of one's own age who are the leaders in all walks of life; to lose oneself in general enthusiasms and co-operate with others for common ends.

Acquaintance | Age | Appreciation | Art | Criticism | Education | Ends | Friend | Life | Life | Men | Nature | Wisdom | Work | World | Appreciation | Art | Friends |

John M. Mason, fully John Mitchell Mason

Self-knowledge is that acquaintance with ourselves which shows us what we are, and what we ought to be, in order to our living comfortably and usefully here, and happily thereafter.

Acquaintance | Knowledge | Order | Self | Self-knowledge | Wisdom |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

What we commonly call friendships are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse between our souls.

Acquaintance | Design | Little | Means | Nothing | Wisdom |

Thomas Malthus, fully Thomas Robert Malthus

The power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases at a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.

Acquaintance | Earth | Man | Power | Will |

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce

Experience: The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

Acquaintance | Experience | Folly | Wisdom | Old |

Charles Caleb Colton

No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty - let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only - those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something may be learnt.

Acquaintance | Day | Life | Life | Man | Promise |

Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens

What is meant by a "knowledge of the world" is simply an acquaintance with the infirmities of men.

Acquaintance | Knowledge | Men | World |

George Washington

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true [criteria] of the attachment of his friends.

Acquaintance | Man | Words | World |

James A. Garfield

Nine times out of ten, the best that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never knew a man to be drowned who was worth saving.

Acquaintance | Man | Worth |

Joseph Addison

Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.

Acquaintance | Admiration | Famous | Man |

George Washington

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them.

Acquaintance | Dependence | Experience | Good | Happy | Little | Will | World |

John Dewey

There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract. The notion that some subjects and methods and that acquaintance with certain facts and truths possess educational value in and of themselves is the reason why traditional education reduced the material of education so largely to a diet of predigested materials.

Acquaintance | Diet | Education | Reason | Truths | Value |

Marilyn vos Savant, born Marilyn Mach

Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike.

Acquaintance | Good | Qualities |

Pierre Beaumarchais, fully Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

It's your world, but I make my way in it. At fifteen, no, I couldn't stand up to you. The age of illusions, when we know nothing, we hope for everything; we're wandering in a mist ... And the half of the world that's never had any use for us, suddenly is besieging us. You need us, you adore us, you're suffering for us. You want everything--except to know what we think. You look deep in our eyes--and put your hand up our dress. You call us, Pretty thing. That confuses us. The most beautiful woman, the highest ranked, lives half dazzled by constant attention, half stifled by obvious contempt. We think all we're good for is pleasing you--till one day, long acquaintance with you dispels the last mist. In a clear light, we suddenly see you as you are--and generally we start preferring ourselves. At thirty, I could finally say no--or really say yes. That's when you begin backing away from us. Now I'm full-grown. I pursue my happiness the same as any man.

Acquaintance | Age | Good | Hope | Need | Suffering | World | Happiness | Think |

Albert Einstein

Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.

Acquaintance | Age | Ends | Life | Life | Man | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Research | Strength | World |

Reinhold Niebuhr, fully Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr

Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.

Acquaintance | Books |

Richard Price

It is proper to observe, that even in this sense of our country, that love of it which is our duty, does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government. Were this implied, the love of their country would be the duty of only a very small part of mankind; for there are few countries that enjoy the advantage of laws and governments which deserve to be preferred. To found, therefore, this duty on such a preference, would be to found it on error and delusion. It is however a common delusion. There is the same partiality in countries, to themselves, that there is in individuals. All our attachments should be accompanied, as far as possible, with right opinions. We are too apt to confine wisdom and virtue within the circle of our own acquaintance and party. Our friends, our country, and, in short, everything related to us, we are disposed to overvalue. A wise man will guard himself against this delusion. He will study to think of all things as they are, and not suffer any partial effections to blind his understanding. In other families there may be as much worth as in our own. In other circles of friends there may be as much wisdom; and in other countries as much of all that deserves esteem; but, notwithstanding this, our obligation to love our own families, friends, and country, and to seek, in the first place, their good, will remain the same.

Acquaintance | Duty | Error | Love | Man | Obligation | Partiality | Preference | Right | Sense | Study | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Wise | Worth | Friends | Think | Value |