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

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

One must not cherish any desire whatever. The devotion of a man who has any desire is selfish. But desireless devotion is love for its own sake. You may love me or not, but I love you: this is love for its own sake.

Desire | Devotion | Love | Man |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

The worldly man's devotion to God is momentary like a drop of water on a redhot frying-pan.

Devotion | God | God |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

Work, apart from devotion or love of God, is helpless and cannot stand alone.

Devotion | Love |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

Householders should go into solitude now and then, to practice spiritual discipline in order to cultivate devotion to God; they should renounce mentally.

Devotion | Discipline | Order | Practice | Solitude |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

The mind is like milk. If you keep the mind in the world, which is like water, then the milk and water will get mixed. That is why people keep milk in a quiet place and let it set into curd, and then churn butter from it. Likewise, through spiritual discipline practiced in solitude, churn the butter of knowledge and devotion from the milk of the mind. Then that butter can easily be kept in the water of the world. It will not get mixed with the world. The mind will float detached on the water of the world.

Devotion | Discipline | Knowledge | Mind | People | Quiet | Will |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

The means of realizing God are ecstasy of love and devotion - that is, one must love God.

Devotion | Ecstasy | God | Love | Means | God |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection.

Devotion | God | Lust | Progress | God |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

If a man leads a householder's life he must have unflagging devotion to truth. God can be realized through truth alone.

Devotion | God | Life | Life | Man | Truth | God |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

What is karma yoga? Its aim is to fix one's mind on God by means of work. That is what you are teaching. It consists of breath-control, concentration, meditation, and so on, done in a spirit of detachment. If a householder performs his duties in the world in a spirit of detachment, surrendering the results to God and with devotion to God in his heart, he too may be said to practice karma yoga. Further, if a person performs worship, japa, and other forms of devotion, surrendering the results to God, he may be said to practice karma yoga. Attainment of God alone is the aim of karma yoga.

Attainment | Devotion | God | Means | Mind | Practice | Spirit | World | God |

Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler

Hammett was the ace performer.... He is said to have lacked heart; yet the story he himself thought the most of [The Glass Key] is the record of a man's devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hard-boiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.

Devotion | Story | Thought | Thought |

Robert Blatchford, fully Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford

You remember that from the first the Clarion crowd and the Hardie crowd were out of harmony...I loathe the “top-hatted, frock-coated magnolia-scented” snobocracy as much as you do; but I cannot away with the Keir Hardies and Arthur Hendersons and Ramsay MacDonalds and Bernard Shaws and Maxtons. Not long ago you told me in a letter of some trade union delegates who were smoking cigars and drinking whisky at the House of Commons at the expense of their unions. You liked them not. Nor do I like the Trade Union bigots who have cheated J. H. Thomas of his pension...I am glad the Labour Party is defeated because I believe they would have disrupted the British Empire. I dreaded their childish cosmopolitanism; their foolish faith that we could abolish crime by reducing the police force. ... The England of my affection and devotion is not a country nor a people: it is a tradition, the finest tradition the world has ever produced. The Labour Party do not subscribe to that tradition; do not know it; could not feel it.

Crime | Devotion | Faith | Tradition | World |

Pandurang Shastri Athavale, fully Pandurang Vaijnath Shastri Athavale

Knowledge, Action and Devotion are complementary to each other.

Action | Devotion |

Pandurang Shastri Athavale, fully Pandurang Vaijnath Shastri Athavale

Devotion (Bhakti) includes Sentimental Devotion (Bhav Bhakti) and Devotion through action (Kruti Bhakti).

Action | Devotion |

Pandurang Shastri Athavale, fully Pandurang Vaijnath Shastri Athavale

Devotion does not mean only Chanting praise and singing glory of God, nor fasting and offerings made to God. Devotion is a specific attitude towards life and existence.

Devotion | Glory | Life | Life | Praise |

Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

Repentant eyes are the cellars of angels, and penitent tears their sweetest wines, which the savor of life perfumeth, the taste of grace sweeteneth, and the purest colors of returning innocency highly beautifieth. This dew of devotion never falleth, but the sun of justice draweth it up, and upon what face soever it droppeth it maketh it amiable in God's eye.... No, no, the angels must still bathe themselves in the pure streams of thy eyes, and thy face shall still be set with this liquid pearl, that as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord's love, so thy tears may be the oil, to nourish and feed his flame. Till death dam up the springs, they shall never cease running: and then shall thy soul be ferried in them to the harbor of life, that as by them it was first passed from sin to grace, so in them it may be wafted from grace to glory.

Angels | Death | Devotion | Grace | Justice | Life | Life | Sin | Soul | Taste | Tears |

Rudyard Kipling

`Confound Romance!' . . . And all unseen / Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.

Body | Capacity | Consciousness | Devotion | Means | Need | Relationship | Will | World |

Saint Francis de Sales NULL

There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love -- every man works his oar voluntarily!

Devotion | Promptness |

Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL

God says: Herein lies the wisdom of the wise and the acumen of the intelligent, that in this very life they attain Me, the Real and Immortal, by means of that which is unreal and mortal.

Devotion |

Shvetashvatara Upanishad

In deep meditation aspirants may See forms like snow or smoke. They may feel A strong wind blowing or a wave of heat. They may see within them more and more light: Fireflies, lightning, sun, or moon. These are signs That one is far on the path to Brahman.

Devotion | God | Will | God | Truths |