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

Phillips Brooks

Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.

Men | Prayer | Will | Think |

George Arthur Buttrick

Prayer is not a vain attempt to change God’s will: it is a filial desire to learn God’s will and share it. Prayer is not a substitute for work: it is the secret spring and indispensable ally of all true work – the clarifying of work’s goal, the purifying of its motives, and the renewing of its zeal.

Change | Desire | God | Indispensable | Motives | Prayer | Will | Work | Zeal | Learn |

Gregg Braden

Prayer transcends imposing our will upon others. Prayer represents opportunity to become more than such cycles by employing our science of feeling to bring new possibilities to an existing situation… Prayer is a concrete, measurable, and directive force in creation. Prayer is real. To pray is to do “something!

Force | Opportunity | Prayer | Science | Will |

Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges

Music being the universal expression of the mysterious and supernatural, the best that man has ever attained to, is capable of uniting in common devotion minds that are only separated by creeds, and it comforts our hope with a brighter promise of unity than any logic offers.

Devotion | Hope | Logic | Man | Music | Promise | Unity |

John Cotton

Not in any prescribed form of prayer, or studied liturgie, but in such manner as the Spirit of grace and prayer teacheth all the people of God.

God | Grace | People | Prayer | Spirit |

Dhammapada NULL

Better than a thousand meaningless words is one word of sense which brings the hearer peace.

Better | Peace | Sense | Words |

Dhammapada NULL

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do if you do not act upon them?

Good | Will | Words |

Henry Sloane Coffin

When we pray for another, it is not an attempt to alter God’s mind toward him. In prayer we add our wills to God’s good will… that in fellowship with Him He and we may minister to those whom both He and we love.

God | Good | Love | Mind | Prayer | Will | Wills |

Emmet Fox

Every condition in your life is the out-picturing of a belief in the subconscious. Every ailment, every difficulty that you have, is but the embodiment of a negative idea somewhere in your subconscious, which is actuated by a charge of fear. Prayer wipes out these negative thoughts and then their embodiment must disappear too. The healing must come.

Belief | Difficulty | Fear | Life | Life | Prayer |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Three of the greatest teachers of the world, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, have left unimpeachable testimony that they found illumination through prayer and could not possibly live without it.

Prayer | World |

Emmet Fox

Truth is true because it is true – not because we make it so. Prayer does not change things for us, but it changes them by tuning us in to the eternal Truth. You have nothing to deal with but your own thoughts, and your own beliefs. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Change | Eternal | Nothing | Prayer | Truth |

Emmet Fox

There is no end to prayer. It echoes on forever in your soul. Long after the visible demonstration has been made and forgotten, the prayer that produced it continues to work for your spiritual advancement, for the creative power of a God-thought is unlimited and eternal.

Eternal | God | Power | Prayer | Soul | Thought | Work |

Emmet Fox

A covenant is a contract. When two people enter into a covenant, it means that one party undertakes to do certain things provided the other party does certain other things. Thus it is a mutual agreement… If you think only kindly, , optimistic, and constructive thoughts, if you will speak only positive and helpful words at all times, if you will do only good and constructive deeds, you will be fulfilling your side of the great covenant – and in no circumstances could God fail to fulfill His.

Circumstances | Deeds | God | Good | Means | People | Will | Words | God | Think |

Mu-mon Gensen, also Mumon Gensen

Words cannot describe everything. The heart’s message cannot be delivered in words. If one receives words literally, he will be lost. If he tries to explain with words, eh will not attain enlightenment in this life.

Enlightenment | Heart | Life | Life | Will | Words |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Our prayer for others ought never to be: “God, give them the light Thou has given to me!” but: “God! Give to them all the light and truth they need for their highest development!”

God | Light | Need | Prayer | Truth |

Sidney Greenberg

Some of the most sacred promises are made without words in the silent sanctuary of the soul.

Sacred | Soul | Words |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith is intellectual humility, devotion of the mind, a true offering, the finest feat the heart can perform.

Devotion | Faith | Heart | Humility | Mind |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

In visions of wisdom, in devotion to the good, in submission to beauty, and when overwhelmed by the holy, we awake to behold existence in this relationship. In reverence, suffering, and humility we discover our existence and find the bridge that leads from existence to God. And this is religion.

Beauty | Devotion | Existence | God | Good | Humility | Relationship | Religion | Reverence | Submission | Suffering | Wisdom |