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

Stephen Samuel Wise

War never ends war.

Ends | War | Wisdom |

Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, simply known as Ali NULL

Whoever knocks persistently, ends by entering.

Ends |

S. Truett Cathy

Truett’s Rules: (1) It’s better to demonstrate than to dictate. If you set the example, you won’t need to set so many rules. (2) Fifty percent of the battle ends when you make up your mind.

Battle | Better | Ends | Example | Mind | Need |

R. W. Dixon, fully Richard Watson Dixon

THERE is a soul above the soul of each, A mightier soul, which yet to each belongs: There is a sound made of all human speech, And numerous as the concourse of all songs: And in that soul lives each, in each that soul, Though all the ages are its lifetime vast; Each soul that dies, in its most sacred whole Receiveth life that shall forever last. And thus forever with a wider span Humanity o’erarches time and death; Man can elect the universal man, And live in life that ends not with his breath: And gather glory that increase still Till Time his glass with Death’s last dust shall fill.

Ends | Glory | Life | Life | Sacred | Soul | Sound | Time |

John Climacus, fully Saint John Climacus, aka John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites

As long as anger lives, she continues to be the fruitful mother of many unhappy children.

Anger | Children | Mother |

Dhammapada NULL

If you rest in the stillness like a broken gong, you have already reached heaven, for anger has left you.

Anger | Heaven | Rest |

Owen Flanagan

Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed.

Ambiguity | Argument | Discussion | Education | Ends | Life | Life | Morality | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection | Right | Rule | Unity | Theoretical |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

As surely as we are driven to live, we are driven to serve spiritual ends that surpass our own interests… We are not only in need of God but also in need of serving His ends, and these ends are in need of us.

Ends | God | Need | God |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

This is the difference between religion and philosophy. Religion begins with the sense of the ineffable; philosophy ends with the sense of the ineffable. Religion begins where philosophy ends.

Ends | Philosophy | Religion | Sense |

Victor Hugo

A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.

Ends | Madness |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Immoral means cannot bring moral ends, for the ends are pre-existent in the means.

Ends | Means |

Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

The source of peace is within us; so also the source of war. And the real enemy is within us, and not outside. The source of war is not the existence of nuclear weapons or other arms. It is the minds of human beings who decide to push the button and to use those arms out of hatred, anger or greed.

Anger | Enemy | Existence | Greed | Peace | War | Weapons |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

Ends | Means | Peace |

Henry Fairfield Osborn

Evolution begins and ends with the purposes of God.

Ends | Evolution | God |