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

Bernie S. Siegel

The emotional environment we create within our bodies can activate mechanisms of destruction or repair.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

We live in an environment of feedback or “mirroring” in which creator and created give rise to each other both within us and outside of us.

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

All systems are dynamics, intricately interdependent and interactive. Environment and genetics are a paired dynamic.

Dynamic | Interdependent |

Judith A. Boss

The reduction of nonhuman animals and the environment to the status of resources for humans has had a devastating effect on the environment.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

The thoughts we think of and the things we make are under our control, that we can manipulate them at will. The evidence seems to suggest the contrary. The information we generate has a life of its own, and its existence is sometimes symbiotic, sometimes parasitic, relative to ours.... It doesn’t seem that memes are any more dependent on their environment than we are.

Control | Evidence | Existence | Life | Life | Will | Think |

Napoleon Hill

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

Care |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

The greatest influence in your life, stronger even than your will power, is your environment. Change that, if necessary. There are two kinds of environment that you should watch carefully - the outer and the inner.

Change | Influence | Life | Life | Power | Will |

Thich Nhất Hanh

Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs. Anger is also rooted in desire, pride, agitation and suspicion. The primary roots of our anger are in ourselves. Our environment and other people are only secondary. It is not difficult for us to accept the enormous damage brought abut by a natural disaster, such as an earthquake or a flood. But when damage is caused by another person, we don’t have much patience. We know that earthquakes and floods have causes, and we should see that the person who has precipitated our anger also has reasons, deep-seated and immediate, for what he has done.

Agitation | Anger | Desire | Patience | People | Pride | Suspicion | Understanding |

W. Clement Stone, fully William Clement Stone

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.

Will | Friends |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The most propitious environment for equality is constituted by a society where the means of production are owned cooperatively, where power is decentralized, and where the community is organized in a multiplicity of small, interrelated but, as far as may be, self-governing groups of mutually responsible men and women.

Equality | Means | Men | Power | Self | Society | Society |

David Eli Lilienthal, "Mr. TVA"

Whether happiness or unhappiness, freedom or slavery, in short whether good or evil results from an improved environment depends largely upon how the change has been brought about, upon the methods by which the physical results have been reached, and in what spirit and for what purpose the fruits of that change are used. Because a higher standard of living, a greater productiveness and a command over nature are not good in and of themselves do not mean that we cannot make good of them, that they cannot be a source of inner strength.

Change | Evil | Freedom | Good | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Slavery | Spirit | Strength | Unhappiness | Happiness |

Shneur Zalman of Liadi

You are needed to illuminate your environment with Torah and service of the heart (prayer). Livelihood and what you need - that, G-d must provide for you. You do what you must, and G-d will do what He must...

Heart | Need | Service | Will | Torah |

E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson

It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life -- for 8 billion or more people -- without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.

Better | Humanity | Life | Life | People |

E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

Mankind | World |

Ezra Taft Benson

It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men’s theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother’s influence. Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children’s needs. That decision can be most shortsighted. It is mother’s influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child’s basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother’s loving example to choose righteousness. How vital are mother’s influence and teaching in the home—and how apparent when neglected!

Children | Decision | Example | Influence | Mother | Theories | Training | Truth | Work | Child |

Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

I am born into an environment — I know not whence I came nor whither I go nor who I am. This is my situation as yours, every single one of you. The fact that everyone always was in this same situation, and always will be, tells me nothing. Our burning question as to the whence and whither — all we can ourselves observe about it is the present environment. That is why we are eager to find out about it as much as we can. That is science, learning, knowledge; it is the true source of every spiritual endeavour of man. We try to find out as much as we can about the spatial and temporal surroundings of the place in which we find ourselves put by birth

Present | Question | Will |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth / in short, materialism / does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.

Fulfillment | Life | Life | Materialism | Wealth |