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

Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna or by his Hebrew acronym Gra ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu")

When you lead your sons and daughters in the good way, let your words be tender and caressing, in terms of disciplines that win the heart's assent.

Good | Heart | Wisdom | Words |

Madame Émile de Girardin, Delphine de Girardin, née Gay

The power of words is immense. A well-chosen word has often sufficed to stop a flying army, to change defeat into victory, and to save an empire.

Change | Defeat | Power | Wisdom | Words |

Gersonides, abbreviation of first letters as RalBaG from Levi ben Gerson NULL

By means of rational thought we have reached the opinion that God knows in advance only the possibilities open to a man in his freedom, not the particular decisions he will make.. It is the opinion of our religion that God never changes... and yet we find in the words of the prophets that God does repent over some things... It is impossible to solve this contradiction if we adopt the view that God knows particular things as particulars.

Contradiction | Freedom | God | Man | Means | Opinion | Religion | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | God | Thought |

Jean-Baptiste Girard

By words we learn thoughts, and by thoughts we learn life.

Life | Life | Wisdom | Words | Learn |

Hugh Reginald Haweis

Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone an rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.

Emotions | Eternal | Language | Music | Popularity | Sound | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Heinrich Heine

Sir, do not mock our dreamers... Their words become the seeds of freedom.

Freedom | Wisdom | Words |

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

What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble while our hearts are so proud.

Sound | Wisdom | Words |

Thomas Haliburton, fully Thomas Chandler Haliburton, pseudonym "Sam Slick"

A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy - the smile that accepts a lover afore words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first-born baby.

Envy | Smile | Wisdom | Woman | Words |

Washington Irving

Redundancy of language is never found with deep reflection. Verbiage may indicate observation, but not thinking. He who thinks much, says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound, crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.

Ideas | Language | Little | Man | Observation | Reflection | Sound | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Words | Thought |

David Hume

So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any ties between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life. But there still remains one method of avoiding this conclusion, and one source which we have not yet examined.

Events | Life | Life | Meaning | Method | Nature | Power | Sense | Sentiment | Wisdom | Words |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Whatever you attach to the words I am is what you are claiming for yourself... Words are the lasers of human thought... Words, in fact, are random thoughts which have been brought together to become “coherent thought.”

Thought | Wisdom | Words |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

Lofty words cannot construct an alliance or maintain it; only concrete deeds can do that.

Deeds | Wisdom | Words | Deeds |

Janet Kauffman

If we care about the land, it will be necessary to redefine whole economies, not just the farm economy. A complex, solid economy could certainly grow around a policy of cooperation with natural environments. Why haven’t we proposed such policies - on a grand a scale as national defense - when our own species is at stake?

Care | Cooperation | Defense | Land | Policy | Will | Wisdom |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Volatility of words is carelessness in actions; words are the wings of actions.

Wisdom | Words |

J. Martin Klotsche

Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning "between" and legere meaning "to choose." An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned "to choose between." He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.

Arrogance | Better | Compassion | Confidence | Cruelty | Evil | Fear | Forbearance | Gentleness | Good | Hate | Ignorance | Intelligence | Intolerance | Love | Meaning | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Words |

Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

Watch a man in times of ... adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.

Adversity | Heart | Man | Truth | Wisdom | Words |