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

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

We can learn to overcome temptations. The pleasure we derive from physical and material pleasures is to a great extent based on our own imagination. We subjectively build up our feeling of need for those phenomena by greatly exaggerating their inherent pleasure.

Character | Imagination | Need | Phenomena | Pleasure | Learn |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt, the hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime - a black thundercloud with the rainbow’s glowing arch above the mountain, a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge, a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of the sunset - he pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship. He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, because to him all days are God’s days.

Character | Day | God | Heart | Need | Worship |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The first American mingled with her pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that his power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over “dumb creation”; on the other hand, speech to him is a perilous gift. He believes profoundly in silence - the sign of perfect equilibrium. silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The an who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.

Absolute | Arrogance | Balance | Body | Character | Conduct | Existence | Humility | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Power | Pride | Silence | Speech | Spirit | Superiority |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

A person lacking internal feelings of self-worth feels a need for honor from others. The greater the lack of self-esteem, the greater the need for the validation of one’s self-worth through the approval of others.

Character | Esteem | Feelings | Honor | Need | Self | Self-esteem | Self-worth | Worth | Approval |

Eliyahu de Vidas,

When your property or possessions sustain some damage or loss, work on yourself to accept the Almighty’s judgment with love. Realize you were born without any belongings and you will eventually leave the world without belongings. You need not identify with your possessions since they are not an integral part of you.

Character | Judgment | Love | Need | Possessions | Property | Will | Work | World |

Helen Gahagan Douglas

Character isn’t inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Action | Anger | Character | Fear | Hate | Mind | Self | Thought | Thought |

John Dewey

The essential problem of freedom, it seems to me, is the problem of the relation of choice and unimpeded effective action to each other... There is an intrinsic connection between choice as freedom and power of action as freedom. A choice which intelligently manifests individuality enlarges the range of action, and this enlargement in turn confers upon our desires greater insight and foresight, and makes choice more intelligent.

Action | Character | Choice | Foresight | Freedom | Individuality | Insight | Power |

Albert Einstein

Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.

Character | Enemy | Force | Individual | Mankind | Opportunity | Power | Society | Terror | Society |

Lewis L. Dunnington

Every person in the world has it in him to become far more than he is... Great unused reservoirs of power lie buried deep within us all.

Character | Power | World |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

In spiritual matters, every single person lives in an entirely different world. One person’s world in no way touches the world of any other person. Hence, there is no need to feel envious of the spiritual accomplishments of others.

Character | Need | World |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character

Character | Dread | Man | Need | Work |

Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler

If you make an effort to help everyone you meet, you will feel close to everyone. A stranger is someone you have not yet helped. Doing acts of kindness for everyone you can fills your world with friends and loved ones.

Character | Effort | Kindness | Will | World | Friends |

Albert Einstein

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure personages is the only thing that can lead us to fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always irresistibly tempts its owners to abuse it.

Abuse | Cause | Character | Deeds | Example | Humanity | Ideas | Money | Selfishness | Wealth | World |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Character | Duty | Power | Reward |

Lowell Fillmore

We can help raise our standard by praising the good whenever and wherever we find it. As we praise the good at hand we grow in our ability to find more good.

Ability | Character | Good | Praise |

Benjamin Franklin

To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it.

Character | Debt | Gratitude | Mind | Power |