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

Harry Emerson Fosdick

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

Character | Life | Life | Light | Power |

John Hancock Field

All worthwhile men have good thoughts, good ideas and good intentions - but precious few of them ever translate those into action.

Action | Character | Good | Ideas | Men | Wisdom |

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, born Margaret Power

One of the almost numberless advantages of goodness is, that it blinds its possessor to many of those faults in others which could not fail to be detected by the morally defective. A consciousness of unworthiness renders people extremely quick-sighted in discerning the vices of their neighbors; as person scan easily discover in others the symptoms of those diseases beneath which they themselves have suffered.

Character | Consciousness | People |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the least of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irreversibly greater with time.

Character | Perseverance | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Time |

Fearon NULL

Grief or misfortune seems to be indispensable to the development of intelligence, energy and virtue. The proofs to which the people are submitted, as with individuals, are necessary then to draw them from their lethargy, to disclose their character.

Character | Energy | Grief | Indispensable | Intelligence | Lethargy | Misfortune | People | Virtue | Virtue | Misfortune |

Arnold Geulincx

My will does not produce the motive power to move my limbs. Rather, he who imparted motion to matter, and ordained its laws, shaped my will also; he thus joined together two utterly different things - the movement of matter and the decision of my will in such a way that whenever my will desires some action, the desired bodily movement will occur and vice versa, without there being any causation involved, or any influence of the one upon the other. It is just as if there were two clocks appropriately adjusted with reference to each other and the time of day in such a way that when one struck the hour the other immediately did likewise.

Action | Character | Day | Decision | Influence | Power | Time | Will | Vice |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.

Action | Capacity | Character | Thought | Thought |

Benjamin R. Haydon

We are a compound of both here and hereafter; we shall be made responsible for the actions of both while here. Anything beyond this is beyond our power to prove, and would be of no real value if we could.

Character | Power | Value |

Robert Hall

In the power of fixing the attention lies the most precious of the intellectual habits.

Attention | Character | Power |

Louise L. Hay

We create the situations and then we give away our power by blaming the other person for our frustration. 'We" are the only thinkers in our mind.

Character | Mind | Power | Thinkers |

Julius Charles Hare (1795-1855) and his brother Augustus William Hare

The power of faith will often shine forth the most when the character is naturally weak.

Character | Faith | Power | Will |

Hugh Reginald Haweis

The religious instinct will never be replaced by law or even philanthropy.

Character | Instinct | Law | Philanthropy | Will |

Robert Hall

The opportunities of making great sacrifices for the good of mankind are of rare occurrence; and he who remains inactive till it is in his power to confer signal benefits or yield important services is in imminent danger of incurring the doom of the slothful servant.

Character | Danger | Good | Important | Mankind | Power | Danger |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are but two roads that lead to an important goal and to the doing of great things: strength and perseverance. Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.

Character | Important | Men | Perseverance | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Strength | Time |

William Henry Harrison

When the Golden Rule becomes the law of human life all this will be changed. The employer will ask how much he can pay the worker, not how little. The workman will ask how much he can do, not how little. We may not be able to reach this condition, but the war can be restricted and its evils ameliorated.

Character | Golden Rule | Law | Life | Life | Little | Rule | War | Will | Golden Rule |

Heinrich Heine

Thought precedes action as lightning does thunder.

Action | Character | Thought | Wisdom |

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, better known by pseudonymn Peter Parley

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 or defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition in contempt.

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