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

Henry Ford

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Learning | Life | Life | Mind |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and that we shall always see Truth in fragments and from different angles of vision.

Conduct | Golden Rule | Rule | Toleration | Truth | Vision | Will | Golden Rule | Think |

Tzvi Freeman

Learning is not the mere acquisition of knowledge and more knowledge. Learning is a process of making quantum leaps beyond the subjective self.

Knowledge | Learning | Self |

William Godwin

No man is obliged to conform to any rule of conduct farther than the rule is consistent with justice.

Conduct | Justice | Man | Rule |

David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins

The evolution of consciousness requires a wide range of opportunities and a playing field that affords almost unlimited options for development. If human life represents a learning process, then society is the ideal school that affords an extremely wide range of options for numerous levels of consciousness to develop, progress, define, identify, and grasp endless subtleties as well as learn more gross lessons. The ego is extremely tenacious and therefore often seems to require extreme conditions before it lets go of a positionality. It often takes the collective experience of millions of people over many centuries to learn even what appears upon examination to be a simple and obvious truth, namely, that peace is better than war or love is better than hate.

Better | Consciousness | Ego | Evolution | Experience | Extreme | Hate | Learning | Life | Life | Love | Peace | People | Progress | Society | Truth | War | Society | Learn |

David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins

The common element of most fears is that they are based on the illusion that happiness is dependent on externals and therefore vulnerable… Cessation of fear is the result of learning that the source of happiness and joy is from within. It stems from recognizing that its source is the joy of one’s own existence, which is continuous and not dependent on externals. This results from surrendering expectations and demands on one’s self, the world, and others. The thought “I can only be happy if I win or get what I want” is a guarantee of worry, anxiety, and unhappiness.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Existence | Fear | Guarantee | Happy | Illusion | Joy | Learning | Self | Thought | Unhappiness | World | Worry | Happiness | Thought |

Kenneth Hanson, aka Ken Hanson

To study is to live… The discipline of learning provides cohesion, a clear and compelling reason for being.

Discipline | Learning | Reason | Study |

Gerald Heard

Prayer… is… a technique for contacting and learning to know Reality… the exploration of Reality by exploring the Beyond, which is within.

Learning | Prayer | Reality |

Hillel NULL

It is not learning but doing that is the most important thing.

Important | Learning |

David Hockey

Learning, then controlling, is limited by only two things: by our mind’s capabilities and the constraints of the universe. Learning how to progressively exploit our environment will not stop until life itself ceases… life explores and exploits its inherited options.

Exploit | Learning | Life | Life | Mind | Universe | Will |

William James

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil.

Conduct | Evil | Good | Hell | Theology | Will | World | Wrong |

Sharon R. Kaufman

An individual does not comprehend his or her self as a linear sequence – a succession of roles or a trajectory of “socialize” beings, learning and then acting out (or deviating from) a set of socially appropriate rules of behavior. Moreover, identity in old age is not merely the sum of the parts, whether roles, achievements, losses, or social norms. Instead, people dynamically integrate a wide range of experience – unique situations, structural forces, values, cultural pathways, knowledge of an entire life span – to construct a current and viable identity.

Age | Behavior | Experience | Individual | Knowledge | Learning | Life | Life | Old age | People | Self | Unique | Old |

Rasa’il al-Kindi

The noblest quality and highest in rank of all human activities is philosophy… The philosopher’s aim is his theoretical studies is to ascertain the truth; in his practical knowledge, to conduct himself in accordance with that truth.

Conduct | Knowledge | Philosophy | Rank | Truth | Theoretical |

Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

Anarchism (from the Greek… contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government – Harmony in such a society not being obtained by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted form the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.

Authority | Conduct | Government | Harmony | Law | Life | Life | Obedience | Society | Submission | Society | Government |