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

Francis Quarles

If thy words be too luxuriant, confine them, lest they confide thee; he that thinks he never can speak enough may easily speak too much. A full tongue and an empty brain are seldom parted.

Character | Enough | Words |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

He who is sincere has the easiest task in the world, for, truth being always consistent with itself, he is put to no trouble about his words and actions; it is like traveling on a plain road, which is sure to bring you to your journey's end better than byways in which many lose themselves.

Better | Character | Journey | Truth | Words | World | Trouble |

Berthold Auerbach

What people will say - in these words there lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words bear sway everywhere.

People | Tyranny | Vision | Will | Wisdom | Words | World |

Elizabeth Anscombe, fully Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret "G. E. M." Anscombe

You cannot take any performance (even an interior performance) as itself an act of intention; for if you describe a performance, the fact that it has taken place is not a proof of intention; words for example may occur in somebody’s mind without his meaning them. so intention is never a performance in the mind, though in some matters a performance in the mind which is seriously meant may make a difference to the correct account of the man’s action - e.g., in embracing someone. But the matters in question are necessarily ones in which outward acts are ‘significant’ in some way.

Action | Example | Intention | Man | Meaning | Mind | Question | Wisdom | Words |

John H. Vincent, fully John Heyl Vincent

I will this day try to live a simple, sincere, and serene life; repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity, and self-seeking; cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity, and the habit of holy silence; exercising economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust, and a childlike trust in God.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Character | Charity | Cheerfulness | Conversation | Day | Diligence | Discontent | Fidelity | God | Habit | Life | Life | Magnanimity | Self | Service | Silence | Thought | Trust | Will | Thought |

John Greenleaf Whittier

For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been."

Character | Words |

Antisthenes NULL

The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.

Beginning | Education | Meaning | Wisdom | Words |

Vicksburg Whig, also called Vicksburg Weekly Whig, Weekly Whig

With temper calm and mild, and words of soften’d tone, he overthrows his neighbor’s cause and justifies his own.

Cause | Character | Temper | Words |

Hans Christian Anderson

Where words fail, music speaks.

Music | Wisdom | Words |

Clarence Edward Barnfield

Vocabulary is an index to a civilization, and ours is a disturbed one. That's why so many of the new words deal with war, violence, drugs, racism, and not so many with peace and prosperity.

Civilization | Peace | Prosperity | War | Wisdom | Words |

Babylonian Talmud

No man shall be held responsible for words uttered in affliction.

Affliction | Man | Wisdom | Words |

James Beattie

How sweet the words of truth breathed from the lips of love!

Love | Truth | Wisdom | Words |

Bible or The Bible or Holy Bible NULL

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

Counsel | Knowledge | Wisdom | Words | Counsel |

Claude M. Bristol

Their repetitive words and phrases are merely methods of convincing the subconscious mind.

Mind | Wisdom | Words |