Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Man

"All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent." - Berthold Auerbach

"Sorrow comes soon enough without despondency. It does a man no good to carry around a lightning-rod to attract trouble." - Arthur Aughey

"There are many seasons in a man’s life - and the more exalted and responsible his position, the more frequently do these seasons recur - when the voice of duty and the dictates of feeling are opposed to each other; and it is only the weak and the wicked who yield that obedience to the selfish impulses of the heart which is due to reason and honor." - Arthur Aughey

"Earth produces nothing worse than an ungrateful man." - Austonius, fully Decimus Magnus Ausonius

"Despise not any man, and do not spurn anything; for there is no man that has not his hour, nor is there anything that has not its place." - Simeon ben Azai, sometimes Ben Azai

"I saw there was no boundary lines between vegetable and animal life, and hence no beginning nor end to either... All physical phenomena, at their best, are dull and murky till they come up into spiritual life. As an illustration that every law has its universality take the familiar law or principle that action and reaction are equal. What is this but reaping the whirlwind after one has sown the wind, or how does natural law differ from this teaching: ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap?’ Are they aught but different strains in the great cosmic melody?" - H. B.

"As it is in himself alone that man can find true and enduring happiness, so in himself alone can he find true and efficient consolation in misfortune." - Joseph Marius von Babo

"If a man commit an offence and repeat it, it becomes in his eyes something permitted." -

"Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law." -

"[Paraphrase] Self consciousness, while glorious for what is has done, is at the same time baneful, because it precludes man from entering the Cosmic Conscious life, which leads to the infinite - which alone can explain God." - Honoré de Balzac

"Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gait, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius." - Honoré de Balzac

"To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals - that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him." - Honoré de Balzac

"As a stick, when once it is dry and stiff you may break it, but you can never bend it into a straighter posture; so doth the man become incorrigible who is settled and stiffened into vice." - Isaac Barrow

"If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man’s enmity needlessly; since any man’s love may be useful, and every man’s hatred is dangerous." - Isaac Barrow

"The absurd man is he who never changes." - Auguste-Marseille Barthélemy

"Look at nature with science as a lens. The rock swarms, the clod dances; the mineral is but the vegetable stepping down, and the animal an ascending plant; the man, a beast extended; and the angel, a developed human soul." -

"Man must realize his own unimportance before he can appreciate his importance." - R. M. Baumgardy

"Let us cherish sympathy. By attention and exercise it may be improved in every man. It prepares the mind for receiving the impressions of virtue; and without it there can be no true politeness. Nothing is more odious than that insensibility which wraps a man up in himself and his own concerns, and prevents his being moved with either the joys or the sorrows of another." - James Beattie

"Calamity is man's true touchstone." -

"Man transcends death by finding meaning in his life... It is the burning desire for the creature to count... What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance." - Ernest Becker

"To say that a man is vain simply means that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself." - Max Beerbohm, fully Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm

"Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman." -

"In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably the most dangerous people seek the power. While in the parlors of indignation the right-thinking citizen brings his heart to a boil. In here, the human bosom -- mine, yours, everybody's -- there isn't just one soul. There's a lot of souls. But there are two main ones, the real soul and a pretender soul. Now! Every man realizes that he has to love something or somebody. He feels that he must go outward. 'If thou canst not love, what art thou?' Are you with me? " - Saul Bellow

"A man is only as good as what he loves." - Saul Bellow

"When a man does a noble act, date him from that. Forget his faults. Let his noble act be the standpoint from which you regard him." - Henry Whitney Bellows

"Honesty rare as a man without self-pity, kinders as large and plain as a prairie wind." - Stephen Vincent Benét

"Candor is the seal of a noble mind, the ornament and pride of man, the sweetest charm of woman, the scorn of a rascal and the rarest virtue of sociability." - Martin Bentzel von Sternau und Hohenau

"All the tensions and contradictions in life are, and ought to be, reflected in one’s philosophy, and one should not attempt to compose them for the sake of neat philosophical construction. Philosophy cannot ever be divorced from the totality of man’s spiritual experience, from his struggles, his insights, his ecstasies, his religious faith and mystical vision." -

"Every man must, in a measure, be alone in the world. No heart was ever cast in the same mould as that which we bear within us." - Eric Berne, born as Leonard Bernstein

"What is man? An angel, an animal, a void, a world, a nothing surrounded by God, indigent of God, capable of God, filled with God, if it so desires." - Pierre de Bérulle

"Man is created by thought; that which he thinks upon in our life becomes in another." - Pierre de Bérulle

"The wise man carries his possessions within him." - Bias NULL

"A man must purify his heart before he prays." -

"Every man is made a fool through his own wisdom." -

"Happy is the man who finds wisdom... Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her." -

"Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." -

"Man enters and departs his this life crying and weeping. He comes and he leaves in love and ignorance." -

"Oppression maketh a wise man mad." -

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." -

"Who loves pleasure shall be a poor man." -

"A really great man is known by three signs - generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success." -

"Life has neither material nor idealistic secrecy or mystery about it. Life is equal to itself only, hence perceiving its meaning is out of the question... The exaggeration of our mental abilities has given rise to what we perceive as “the problem” of discerning life’s purpose... If it is beyond our powers to disembowel love and beauty - we can only ravish them - it means that they are given to us not for cognition but for reflection. Similarly, the freedom of choice granted to man, a freedom denied the rest of the living species, is man’s task, a duty to exercise and fulfill, not merely an opportune option." - Andrei Bitov, fully Andrei Georgiyevich Bitov

"Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. He who is a stranger to it may possess, but cannot enjoy; for it is labor only which gives relish to pleasure. It is the appointed vehicle of every good to man. It is the indispensable condition of possessing a sound mind in a sound body." - Hugh Blair

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." - William Blake

"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." - William Blake

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind." - William Blake

"The voice of the Devil. All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors: 1. That man has two real existing principles; vis; a body and a soul. 2. That energy, called evil, is alone from body, and that reason, called good, is alone from the soul. 3. That God will torment man in eternity for the following energies. But the following contraries to these are true: 1. Man has no body distinct from his soul; for that called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of the soul in this age. 2. Energy is the only life, and is from the body; and reason is bound or outward circumference of energy. 3. Energy is eternal delight." - William Blake

"A woman’s head is always influenced by her heart; but a man’s heart is always influenced by his head." - Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington, Lady Blessington, born Margaret Power

"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence." - Léon Bloy