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 Bailey Aldrich

A man is known by the company his mind keeps.

Character | Man | Mind |

Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Abu Ismaïl Abdullah ibn Abi-Mansour Mohammad or Khajah Abdullah Ansari of Herat

The company of a good man is the light of the soul, of an evil man the poison of life.

Character | Evil | Good | Life | Life | Light | Man | Soul |

Paul Chatfield, pseudonym for Horace Smith

As friendship must be founded on mutual esteem, it cannot long exist among the vicious; for we soon find ill company to be like a dog, which dirts those the most whom he loves the best.

Character | Esteem | Friendship |

Sara Davidson

The ability to laugh at life is right at the top, with love and communication in the hierarchy of our needs. Humor has much to do with pain; it exaggerates the anxieties and absurdities we feel, so that we gain distance and through laughter, relief.

Ability | Character | Humor | Laughter | Life | Life | Love | Pain | Right | Wisdom |

Euripedes NULL

Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.

Character | Man | Wisdom |

Stéphanie Félicité, Comtesse de Genlis, born Stéphanie Félicité Ducrest de Saint-Aubin

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds; and these invaluable communication are within the reach of all.

Books | Character | Wisdom |

Edwin Paxton Hood

Be as careful of the books you read as the company you keep. Your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.

Books | Character | Will |

James Russell Lowell

A man's mind is known by the company it keeps.

Character | Man | Mind |

Gina Lombroso, fully Gina Elena Zefora Lombroso

Morality is not an imposition removed from life and reason; it is a compendium of the minimum of sacrifices necessary for man to live in company with other men, without suffering too much or causing others to suffer.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Men | Morality | Reason | Suffering |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.

Appearance | Character | Dignity | Intelligence | Perseverance | Silence | Wisdom |

Marya Mannes

It is not enough to show people how to live better: there is a mandate for any group with enormous powers of communication to show people how to be better.

Better | Character | Enough | People |

Ronald E. Osborn

When the taste is purified, the morals are not easily corrupted. Whatever injures the body, the morals, or the mind, will lessen or vitiate taste; thus, disorders of the body and violent passions of the mind, will do this, and so will also excessive care or covetousness; but above all, a habit of intemperance, and keeping low company will greatly deprave that which was once a good taste.

Body | Care | Character | Good | Habit | Intemperance | Mind | Taste | Will |

Shimon HaTzaddik

For his entire life he was in the company of wise men and Of all the things beneficial to one’s body, silence is the best. [paraphrase]

Body | Character | Life | Life | Men | Silence | Wise |

William Makepeace Thackeray

Frequent the company of your betters.

Character |

Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.

Difficulty | Little | Wisdom |

Bruno Bettelheim

Children who have been taught, or conditioned, to listen passively most of the day to the warm verbal communication coming from the TV screen, to the deep emotional appeal of the so-called TV personality, are often unable to respond to real persons because they arouse so much less feeling than the skilled actor. Worse, they lose the ability to learn from reality because life experiences are more complicated than the ones they see on the screen, and there is no one who comes in at the end to explain it all. The “TV child”... gets discouraged when he cannot grasp the meaning of what happens to him.... If, later in life, this block of solid inertia is not removed, the emotional isolation from others that starts in front of TV may continue... This being seduced into passivity and discouraged about facing life actively on one’ sown is the real danger of TV.

Ability | Children | Danger | Day | Isolation | Life | Life | Meaning | Personality | Reality | Wisdom | Danger | Inertia | Learn |

Saul Bellow

Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.

Love | Men | Wisdom |