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

Elizabeth Gilbert

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that’s not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog’s money, my dog’s time—everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it’s always been. Sometime after I’d left my husband, I was at a party and a guy I barely knew said to me, You know, you seem like a completely different person, now that you’re with this new boyfriend. You used to look like your husband, but now you look like David. You even dress like him and talk like him. You know how some people look like their dogs? I think maybe you always look like your men.

Listening | Prayer |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Problem is, you can’t accept that his relationship had a real short shelf life. You’re like a dog at the dump, baby – you’re just lickin’ at the empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable. So drop it.But I love him.So love him.But I miss him.So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.

Prayer | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There's no trouble in this world so serious that it can't be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.

Church | Day | Grace | Looks | Man | Prayer | Will | Old |

Elizabeth Gilbert

The other night we talked about the terms we use while let us take comfort someone desperate. I told him in English, sometimes we say, Been there. I explained to him that the deep sadness as a specific place, with its coordinates on the map of time. When you find yourself in that forest of sorrow, you can not imagine you'll ever find a way to a better place. But, if someone fails to convince that he was in the same place, but it has left, it can sometimes bring hope.

Day | Life | Life | Prayer | Worth | Think | Understand |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

It is a natural virtue incident to our sex to be pitiful of those that are afflicted.

Cost | Curiosity | Men | Order | Prayer | Scandal |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The foolish fears of what might happen. I cast them all away among the clover-scented grass, among the new-mown hay, among the husking of the corn, where drowsy poppies nod where ill thoughts die and good are born— out in the fields with God.

Prayer |

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand. Though brave its walls as any in the land, and its tall turrets lift their heads in grace; though skilful and accomplished artists trace most beautiful designs on every hand, and gleaming statues in dim niches stand, and fountains play in some flow'r-hidden place: yet, when from the frowning east a sudden gust of adverst fate is blown, or sad rains fall day in, day out, against its yielding wall, lo! the fair structure crumbles to the dust. Love, to endure life's sorrow and earth's woe, needs friendship's solid masonwork below.

Hope | Prayer |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him, and all the world, if you were my wife-so I'd rather you were that!' 'No! I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely. 'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers, and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you, as he is of me.

Prayer |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

She seemed almost over fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.

Heaven | Prayer | Rest |

Emmet Fox

A small spark can start a great fire.

God | Prayer | Right | Thinking | God | Think |

Emmet Fox

Why not make the following experiment, which will not only be thrillingly interesting, but will certainly teach you more in one day than you could learn from books or lectures in many weeks. Here is what you have to do: For one whole day think, speak, and act exactly as you would if you were absolutely convinced of the truth of the statements that God has all power and infinite intelligence, and that His nature is infinite goodness and love. To think in this manner all day will be the most difficult thing, because it is so subtle. To speak in accordance with these truths will be easier, if you are vigilant. To act in accordance with them will be the easiest part, although it may require much in the way of moral courage.

Age | Belief | Enough | God | Power | Prayer | Reason | Space | Thinking | Time | Will | God |

Emmet Fox

So it is with divine abundance - the only limit is the limit of our capacity to receive.

Mind | Prayer |

Emmet Fox

And the Truth turns out to be nothing less than the amazing but undeniable fact that the whole outer world -whether it be the physical body, the common things of life, the winds and the rain, the clouds, the earth itself -is amenable to man's thought, and that he had dominion over it when he knows it.

Bible | Faith | Law | Life | Life | Prayer | Right | Struggle | Truth | Understanding | Will | Bible | Teacher |

Emmet Fox

Prayer will enable you, sooner or later, to get yourself, or anyone else, out of any difficulty on the face of the earth. It is the Golden Key to harmony and happiness. To those who have no acquaintance with the mightiest power in existence, this may appear to be a rash claim, but it needs only a fair trial to prove that, without a shadow of doubt, it is a just one. You need take no one's word for it, and you should not. Simply try it for yourself, and see. God is omnipotent, and man is His image and likeness, and has dominion over all things. This is the inspired teaching, and it is intended to be taken literally, at its face value. Man means every man, and so the ability to draw on this power is not the special prerogative of the mystic or the saint, as is so often supposed, or even of the highly trained practitioner. Whoever you are, wherever you may be, the Golden Key to harmony is in your hand now. This is because in scientific prayer it is God who works, and not you, and so your particular limitations or weaknesses are of no account in the process. You are only the channel through which the divine action takes place, and your treatment will really be just the getting of yourself out of the way. Beginners often get startling results at the first time of trying, for all that is absolutely essential is to have an open mind, and sufficient faith to try the experiment. Apart from that, you may hold any views on religion, or none… We have said that the Golden Key is simple, and so it is, but, of course, it is not always easy to turn. If you are very frightened or worried it may be difficult, at first, to get your thoughts away from material things. But by constantly repeating some statement of absolute Truth that appeals to you, such as There is no power but God, or I am the child of God, filled and surrounded by the perfect peace of God, or God is love, or God is guiding me now, or, perhaps best and simplest of all, just God is with me -- however mechanical or dead it may seem at first -- you will soon find that the treatment has begun to "take," and that your mind is clearing. Do not struggle violently; be quiet but insistent. Each time that you find your attention wandering, just switch it straight back to God. Do not try to think out in advance what the solution of your difficulty will probably turn out to be. This is technically called "outlining," and will only delay the demonstration. Leave the ques tion of ways and means strictly to God. You want to get out of your difficulty -- that is sufficient. You do your half, and God will never fail to do His.

Action | Change | Life | Life | Prayer | Rest | Sense | Time |

Emmet Fox

There is a truly spiritual mode of communication from which nothing but good can come. It is this: Sit down quietly and remind yourself that the one God really is Omnipresent. Then reflect that your real self is in the Presence of God now, and that the real selves of others are also in the Presence of God. Do this for a few minutes every day, and sooner or later you will get a sense of communication.

God | Love | Prayer | Will | Wonder | Theoretical | God |

Emmet Fox

Prayer is the only real action in the full sense of the word, because prayer is the only thing that changes one's character. A change in character, or a change in soul, is a real change. When that kind of change takes place, you become a different person and, therefore, for the rest of your life you act in a different way from the way in which you have previously acted, and in which you would have continued to act had you not prayed. In other words, you become a different person. The amount of difference may be only very slight for each time that you pray: nevertheless it is there, for you cannot pray without making yourself different in some degree.

Difficulty | Prayer | Time | Will |

Emmet Fox

God is bigger than any problem. God in you is greater than any difficulty that you have to meet. God cares for you more than it is possible for any human being to realize. God can help you in proportion to the degree in which you worship Him. You worship God by really putting your trust in him instead of in outer conditions, or in fear, or in depression, or in seeming dangers, and so forth. You worship God by recognizing His presence everywhere, in all people and conditions that you meet; and by praying regularly. You pray well when you pray with joy.

Day | God | Office | Prayer | Time | Will | God |

Emmet Fox

He who minds his neighbor's business neglects his own.

Doubt | Effort | Enough | Faith | God | Good | Heart | Love | Means | Prayer | Will | God | Think |

Emmet Fox

It is not possible that you could ever find yourself anywhere where God was not fully present, fully active, able and willing to set you free.

Body | Consciousness | Desire | Forgiveness | Position | Prayer | Search | Will | Forgiveness | Forgive | Old |

Emmet Fox

Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have prosperity no matter what your present circumstances may be. You can have health and physical fitness. You can have a happy and joyous life. You can have a good home of your own. You can have congenial friends and comrades. You can have a full, free, joyous life, independent and untrammeled. You can become your own master or your own mistress. But to do this you must definitely seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly and firmly for the port that you intend to make.

Ability | Absolute | Acquaintance | Action | Attention | Delay | Difficulty | Faith | God | Harmony | Man | Means | Mind | Need | Peace | Power | Prayer | Quiet | Struggle | Time | Truth | Will | Trial | God | Child | Think |