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

Alan Cohen

Adversity is our dear friend. It is the driving force that pushes us out of our comfortable nest and forces us to learn to fly on our own. We can really welcome adversity as a gift. Without it our growth is very slow.

Adversity | Force | Friend | Growth | Learn |

Alfred North Whitehead

The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.

Force | Justification |

Alfred North Whitehead

Evil is the brute motive force of fragmentary purpose, disregarding the eternal vision. Evil is overruling, retarding, hurting. The power of God is the worship He inspires. The worship of God is not a rule of safety – it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.

Adventure | Death | Eternal | Evil | Force | God | Hope | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Religion | Rule | Spirit | Vision | Worship | God |

Anthony "Tony" Robbins

The strongest force in the universe is a human being living consistently with his identity.

Force | Universe |

Arthur W Osborn

The most potent force in the world is an idea which, when organized into a body of concepts, becomes a culture and way of life. Concepts are psychological lenses focusing our experiences. Our physical eyes bring their reports but our conceptual lenses interpret them. If we would “know ourselves” it is a paramount necessity that we should examine critically and impartially our conceptual heritage and endeavor to discover why we accept or reject it.

Body | Culture | Force | Life | Life | Necessity | World |

Bernard Bosanquet

Nothing gives such force in getting rid of evil as this belief that the good is the only reality.

Belief | Evil | Force | Good | Nothing | Reality |

Blaise Pascal

Force without justice is tyrannical; justice without force is impotent.

Force | Justice |

Blaise Pascal

Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity; to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.

Eternity | Existence | Force | Habit | Imagination | Nothing | Power | Present | Reason | Reflection | Thinking |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'

Argument | Belief | Education | Faith | Force | Reason | Will | Think |

Blaise Pascal

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Desire | Force |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Children learn at their own pace, and it is a mistake to try to force them. The great incentive to effort, all through life, is experience of success after initial difficulties. The difficulties must not be so great as to cause discouragement, or so small as not to stimulate effort. From birth to death, this is a fundamental principle. It is by what we do ourselves that we learn.

Birth | Cause | Children | Death | Effort | Experience | Force | Life | Life | Mistake | Success | Learn |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, not in the force of thought, moral principles, and love, and this may be found in the humblest conditions of life.

Character | Force | Life | Life | Love | Principles | Soul | Thought |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

Moral force never dwells in solitude; it will always bring neighbors.

Force | Solitude | Will |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know human beings.

Force | Knowing | Words |

Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

This metaphor of a mountain path allows us to reconcile an ancient paradox about whether we truly have free will or whether our life is somehow predestined. At the moment of birth we are each given a specific inner mountain to climb, reflecting the force of predestination. How we climb and the time we take are up to us, reflecting the power of free will. In other words, we're given the playing field, but we choose how to play the game. We always have the power of choice, discipline, responsibility and commitment. No life path is harder or easier, better or worse, than any other, except to the degree we make it so.

Better | Birth | Choice | Commitment | Discipline | Force | Free will | Life | Life | Paradox | Play | Power | Predestination | Responsibility | Time | Will | Words |