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

Albertus Magnus, known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne

Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances... If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms... Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity.

Character | Desire | God | Happy | Heart | Man | Mind | Peace | Purity | Quiet | Safe | Space | Time | Tranquility | Work |

Celia Luce

A small trouble is like a pebble. Hold it too close to your eye and it fills the whole world and puts everything out of focus. Hold it at a proper viewing distance and it can be examined and properly classified. Throw it at your feet and it can be seen in its true setting, just one more tiny bump on the pathway to eternity.

Character | Eternity | Focus | Wisdom | World | Trouble |

Edward Sanford Martin

Self-respect is at the bottom of all good manners. They are the expression of discipline, of good-will, of respect for other people's rights and comfort and feelings.

Character | Comfort | Discipline | Feelings | Good | Manners | People | Respect | Rights | Self | Will | Respect |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Who are happy in marriage? Those with so little imagination that they cannot picture a better state, and those so shrewd that they prefer quiet slavery to hopeless rebellion.

Better | Character | Happy | Imagination | Little | Marriage | Quiet | Rebellion | Slavery |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so also the smallest affairs disturb us most.

Character |

Jane Porter

A cheerful temper spreads like the dawn, and all vapors disperse before it. Even the tear dries on the cheek, and the sigh sinks away half-breathed when the eye of benignity beams upon the unhappy.

Character | Dawn | Temper |

Plotinus NULL

The pinions of your soul will have power to still the untamed body. The creature will yield only to watchful, strenuous constancy of habit. Purify your soul from all undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify the body, deny self - affections as well as appetites - and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision.

Body | Character | Constancy | Fear | Habit | Hope | Power | Self | Soul | Vision | Will |

Paige Rense, aka Paige Rense Noland

Everyone has, I think, in some quiet corner of his mind, an ideal home waiting to become a reality.

Character | Mind | Quiet | Reality | Waiting |

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 |

Jeremy Taylor

If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of a godly man, how sound he sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed his mind, how free from care, how easy his position, how moist his mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never admire the noises, the diseases, the throngs of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites that fill the house of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious.

Care | Character | Heart | Man | Men | Mind | Position | Quiet | Rest | Sound |

Francis Walsingham, fully Sir Francis Walsingham

Every virtue gives a man a degree of felicity in some kind: honesty gives a man a good report; justice, estimation; prudence, respect; courtesy and liberality, affection; temperance gives health; fortitude, a quiet mind, not to be moved by any adversity.

Adversity | Character | Courtesy | Estimation | Fortitude | Good | Health | Honesty | Justice | Man | Mind | Prudence | Prudence | Quiet | Respect | Virtue | Virtue |

Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

Never suffer the prejudice of the eye to determine the heart.

Character | Heart | Prejudice |