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

Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

The greatest manifestation of your love for the Almighty can be expressed on your day of death. Before your death, you might be thinking about how you have not fulfilled all of your wishes and plans. In the moments before your death you might have complaints against the Almighty, or you might fatalistically accept your death by saying, What can be done? My body is giving in to the laws of nature. The doctors have given up hope.” Both of these attitudes are wrong You now face the greatest challenge of your life. You have the potential to submit yourself to the will of the Almighty with love. This level takes preparation. If a person has not mastered control of his thoughts, he is likely to waste his last moments thinking of petty resentments and desires. Frequently confusion and fear of death swallow up every other thought unless one has prepared for that moment.

Body | Challenge | Character | Control | Day | Death | Fear | Giving | Hope | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Thinking | Thought | Waste | Will | Wishes | Wrong | Thought |

Hugh Blair

Willingness to be taught what we do not know, is the sure pledge of growth both in knowledge and wisdom.

Character | Growth | Knowledge | Wisdom |

William Ellery Channing

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

Character | Energy | Freedom | Growth | Intelligence | Liberty | People | Power | Progress | Spirit | Worth | Intellect |

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, born Soong Mei-ling or May-ling

In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurture for growth and development. Thus also, day by day, we write our own destiny; for inexorably we become what we do. This I believe, is the supreme logic and the law of life.

Character | Day | Destiny | Growth | Heart | Law | Life | Life | Logic | Time |

John Dewey

Education as growth or maturity should be an ever-present process.

Character | Education | Growth | Present |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

Character | Choice | Growth |

Dubner Magid, name for Rabbi Jacob ben wolf Krantz

A person whose major goal in life is spiritual growth feels love for anyone who suggests ways he can improve.

Character | Growth | Life | Life | Love |

Charles Curran

Life in this world is a very important reality, but it is not the ultimate reality... True growth in this world always calls for a dying to my own sinfulness, individualism and selfishness so that I might come closer to my true self in relationship to all others and to God. Thus, in the end, life and death are not diametrically opposed. Life involves a dying and dying is a way of life.

Character | Death | God | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Reality | Relationship | Self | Selfishness | World |

John Dewey

Happiness is fundamental in morals only because happiness is not something to be sought for, but is something now attained, even in the midst of pain and trouble, whenever recognition of our ties with nature and with fellow-men releases and informs our action.

Action | Character | Men | Nature | Pain | Happiness |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

Fortunate is the person whose ambition is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

Ambition | Character | Growth | Happy | Life | Life | Will | Ambition |

Henry Ford

We now know that anything which is economically right is also morally right; there can be no conflict between good economics and good morals.

Character | Economics | Good | Right | Wisdom |

Philip Glass

Maybe the purpose of life is not as important as the process of growth that’s integral with being alive... In answering the question “What’s the meaning of life?” maybe the people who have taken the challenges of life as meaningful are the best ones to ask... These are the people who have appreciated and taken advantage of the possibilities life has to offer. They find life precious.

Character | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Purpose | Purpose | Question |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Where do we now meet an original nature? And where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

Character | Man | Nature | Strength |