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

W. H. Auden, fully Wystan Hugh Auden

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Art | Character | Culture | Money | Talking | Writing | Art |

Aśvaghoṣa NULL

The purpose of this discipline is to bring man into the habit of applying the insight that has come to him as the result of the preceding disciplines. When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one’s mind on the act and the doing of it, not on one’s relation to the act, or its character or value. One should think: there is walking, there is stopping, there is realizing; not, I am walking, I am doing this, it is a good thing, it is disagreeable, I am gaining merit, it is I who am realizing how wonderful it is. Thence come vagrant thoughts, feelings of elation or of failure and unhappiness. Instead of all this, one should simply practice concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquillity of mind, realization, insight and Wisdom; and one should follow the practice in faith, willingness and gladness. After long practice the bondage of old habits become weakened and disappears, and in its place appear confidence, satisfaction, awareness and tranquillity. What is the Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and mortificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individual’s instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges - the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish one’s personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances.

Anger | Awareness | Character | Confidence | Control | Discipline | Enlightenment | Failure | Faith | Fear | Feelings | Good | Greed | Habit | Individual | Insight | Lust | Man | Means | Merit | Mind | Personality | Practice | Pride | Purpose | Purpose | Tranquility | Understanding | Unhappiness | Will | Wisdom | Failure | Awareness | Old |

Jacob Bohme, or Jacob Behmen or Jakob Böhme

Spiritual knowledge cannot be communicated from one intellect to another, but must be sought for in the spirit of God.

Character | God | Knowledge | Spirit | Intellect |

William J. H. Boetcker, fully William John Henry Boetcker

Your greatness is measured by your kindness - Your education and intellect by your modesty - Your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices - Your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.

Character | Consideration | Education | Greatness | Ignorance | Kindness | Modesty | Intellect |

Jean de La Bruyère

Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.

Character | Men | Taste | Friendship | Intellect |

Buddha, Gautama Buddha, or The Buddha, also Gotama Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha and Buddha Śākyamuni NULL

On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life nothing can destroy him; if he has conquered greed nothing can limit his freedom.

Character | Day | Deeds | Destroy | Faith | Freedom | Greed | Journey | Life | Life | Light | Man | Mindfulness | Nothing | Right | Wisdom | Deeds |

William Ellery Channing

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people’s energy, intellect and virtues.

Character | Energy | Freedom | People | Worth | Intellect |

William Ellery Channing

The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect and virtues... Progress, the growth of intelligence and power, is the end and boon of liberty; and, without this, a people may have the name, but want the substance and spirit of freedom.

Character | Energy | Freedom | Growth | Intelligence | Liberty | People | Power | Progress | Spirit | Worth | Intellect |

Jeremy Collier

Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good nature.

Character | Envy | Force | Good nature | Good | Health | Malice | Meanness | Nature | Prosperity | Spirit | Wants | Wishes | Happiness |

Euripedes NULL

No man on earth is truly free. All are slaves of money or necessity. Public opinion or fear of prosecution forces each one, against his conscience, to conform.

Character | Conscience | Earth | Fear | Man | Money | Necessity | Opinion | Public |

Edward Everett

Truth travels down from the heights of philosophy to the humblest walks of lie, and up from the simplest perceptions of an awakened intellect to the discoveries which almost change the face of the world. At every stage of its progress it is genial, luminous, creative.

Change | Character | Philosophy | Progress | Truth | World | Intellect |

Friedrich Engels

From its first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization; wealth and again wealth and once more wealth, wealth, not of society, but of the single scurvy individual - here was its one and final aim.

Character | Civilization | Day | Greed | Individual | Society | Spirit | Wealth |

Eliyahu de Vidas,

Set aside an amount of money that you will give away if you become angry. Be sure it is a sufficient amount of money to make you think twice before becoming angry.

Character | Money | Will | Think |