Great Throughts Treasury

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

Harold W. Percival, fully Sir Harold Waldwin Percival

English Author, Theosophist, Founder of The Word Foundation, best known for his magnum opus, "Thinking and Destiny"

"All destiny begins with thinking. Responsibilities connected with the present duty. Duty of which leads to the balancing of the thought. One of the objects of life is to think without creating thoughts. That is without being attached to the object for which the thought is created and can be attained only when desire is self-controlled and directed by thinking. Until then, thoughts are created and are destiny."

"Every thing existing on the physical plain is an exteriorization of a thought which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought and in accordance with that one's responsibility at the conjunction of time, condition and place. This law of thought is Destiny. Thinking is the basic factor in shaping human destiny. The machinery of the law is nature. The purpose of the universe is to make all units of matter conscious of progressively higher degrees."

"This is the law: Everything existing on the physical plane is an exteriorization of thought, which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought, and in accordance with that one’s responsibility, at the conjunction of time, condition, and place."

"A thought has no size in the physical sense but is vast as compared to the physical acts and objects into which it is later precipitated. The power of a thought is enormous and superior to all the successive physical acts, objects, and events that body forth its energy. A thought often endures for a time much greater than the whole life of the man who thought it."

"For you it is possible to do anything; the only thing impossible for you to do is to do wrong, inasmuch as you are knowledge and justice and love."

"Accidents and chance are words used by persons who do not think clearly when they attempt to account for certain happenings. Anyone who thinks must be convinced that in a world as orderly as this there is no room for the words accident and chance."

"From November of 1892 I passed through astonishing and crucial experiences, following which, in the spring of 1893, there occurred the most extraordinary event of my life. I had crossed 14th Street at 4th Avenue, in New York City. Cars and people were hurrying by. While stepping up to the northeast corner curbstone, Light, greater than that of myriads of suns opened in the center of my head. In that instant or point, eternities were apprehended. There was no time. Distance and dimensions were not in evidence."

"Consciousness is the ultimate Reality; compared with it, all else is illusion."

"I do not presume to preach to anyone; I do not consider myself a preacher or a teacher. Were it not that I am responsible for the book, I would prefer that my personality be not named as its author. The greatness of the subjects about which I offer information, relieves and frees me from self-conceit and forbids the plea of modesty."

"Therefore public officials in monarchies, oligarchies and democracies, are as bad as they are. They are the representatives of the people; in them the thoughts of the people have taken form. Those who are not in office would do as the present officials do, or even worse, if they had the opportunity. Corrupt officials can hold office and sinecures only so long as the thoughts of the people are depraved."

"In every age a few individuals do find The Great Way. They do conquer death by regenerating and restoring their bodies to the Realm of Permanence."

"Yes, there is a Government of this changing world. The Government is not in the changing world. It is in the Realm of Permanence, and though the Realm of Permanence pervades this world of change, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes."

"You will not be, you cannot be, satisfied with anything less than Self-knowledge. You, as feeling-and-desire, are the responsible doer of your Triune Self; from what you have made for yourself as your destiny you must learn two great lessons which all experiences of life are to teach. These lessons are: What to do, and, What not to do. You may put these lessons off for as many lives as you please, or learn them as soon as you will — that is for you to decide, but in the course of time you will learn them."