Great Throughts Treasury

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

Ralph Tyler Flewelling

American Idealist Philosopher, Author and Episcopal Minister, Professor at University of Southern California and at the Sorbonne in Paris

"We live in an age to which self-restraint is hateful. Our emphasis is placed on achievement. Restraint without achievement is nothing, but achievement without restraint is worse."

"The value of science lies in its generalization and relation of fact to fact by means of which the mind builds a universe of sequences and connections, applying these generalizations to the needs of life.... The scientist, indeed, has no more right to be a materialist than an idealist. Neither of the foregoing presuppositions is scientific; both are philosophical."

"Concentration is simply the power to overcome or to command the picturing faculty in the interest of directive mental achievements."

"In life there are so many factors involved that mathematical enumeration is the smallest and often the least important element involved. No illustration is more apt than the time-worn example of the logics, wherein it is presumed that if one man could dig a well in ten days, ten men could dig it in one. The mathematics is, of course, perfect, but worthless as overlooking the fact that ten men would, in that kind of a task, be in each other’s way."

"To Personalism, personality is the supreme value. Society then should be so organized as to present every person the best possible opportunity for self-development, physically, mentally, and spiritually since the person is the supreme essence of democracy and hostile to totalitarianisms of every sort."