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

Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe

No media project succeeds based on “good news only” because good news does not trigger our alert system. Anything good indicates a safe space, the quiet background against which events can play out. The enculturated mind is cued to respond to the negative as a point of focus, which largely screens out or ignores a quiet stable base, and, because it sharpens and maintains our alert awareness, we actually begin to look for the negative.

Awareness | Events | Focus | Good | Mind | News | Play | Quiet | Safe | Space | System |

Kahlil Gibran

Love joins our present with the past and the future... Love is a divine knowledge that enables men to see as much as the gods... Love is a blinding mist that keeps the soul from discerning the secret of existence, so that the heart sees only trembling phantoms of desire among the hills, and hears only echoes of cries from voiceless valleys... Love is the rest of the body in the quiet of the grave, the tranquillity of the soul in the depth of Eternity... And so, all who passed spoke of Love as the image of their hopes and frustrations, leaving it a mystery as before.

Body | Desire | Eternity | Existence | Future | Grave | Heart | Knowledge | Love | Men | Mystery | Past | Present | Quiet | Rest | Soul | Tranquility |

Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead as to its own. Such an one can do no deed however small but it is clothed with something of God’s power and authority.

Authority | God | Mind | Nothing | Power | Quiet | Self | Will | God |

Michael S. Josephson

Happiness is a kind of emotional resting place of quiet satisfaction with one's life.

Life | Life | Quiet |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I know of no teachers so powerful and persuasive as the little army of specialists. They carry no banners, they beat no drums; but where they are men learn that bustle and push are not the equals of quiet genius and serene mastery.

Genius | Little | Men | Quiet | Learn |

Robert Burton

What physic, what chirurgery, what wealth, favor, authority can relieve, bear out, assuage, or expel a troubled conscience? A quiet mind cureth all.

Authority | Conscience | Mind | Quiet | Wealth |

Walter Raleigh, fully Sir Walter Raleigh

What thou givest after thy death, remember that thou givest it to a stranger, and most times to an enemy; for he that shall marry thy wife will despise thee, thy memory and thine, and shall possess the quiet of thy labors, the fruit which thou hast planted, enjoy thy love, and spend with joy and ease what thou hast spared and gotten with care and travail.

Care | Death | Despise | Enemy | Joy | Love | Memory | Quiet | Wife | Will |

Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

In the relation of master to slave the master does not make a point of the need that he has for the other; he has in his grasp the power of satisfying this need through his own action; whereas the slaver, in his dependent condition, his hope and fear, is quiet conscious of the need he has for his master. Even if the need is at bottom equally urgent for both, it always works in favor of the oppressor and against the oppressed.

Action | Fear | Hope | Need | Power | Quiet |

Mahabharata or The Mahabharata NULL

One should forgive, under any injury. It hath been said that the continuation of the species is due to man’s being forgiving. Forgiveness is holiness; by forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is quiet of mind. Forgiveness and gentleness are the qualities of the Self-possessed. They represent eternal virtue.

Eternal | Forgiveness | Gentleness | Man | Mind | Qualities | Quiet | Sacrifice | Self | Universe | Virtue | Virtue | Forgiveness |

Thomas Fuller

Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind.

Life | Life | Mankind | Mind | Quiet | Rule | World |

William Shakespeare

A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Wolsey at III, ii)

Conscience | Life | Life | Peace | Quiet |

Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson

The key to the art of prayer is thought. As we think so we pray. The highest level of prayer is to think God’s thoughts after Him, to attune our lives to love, hope, faith, justice, kindness; to become open channels for the goodness of God. Prayer is quiet meditation about eternal values. It is the mind adventuring in the universe. Prayer moves with the instantaneous speed of thought, through infinite space, to the four corners of the earth, to the depth of the human heart, to the mountaintop of inspiration.

Art | Earth | Eternal | Faith | God | Heart | Hope | Inspiration | Justice | Kindness | Love | Meditation | Mind | Prayer | Quiet | Space | Thought | Universe | Art | Think |

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

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

Happy | Joy | Life | Life | Quiet |

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

Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye.

Life | Life | Men | Quiet | Will |

Chief Luther Standing Bear

Nothing the Great Mystery placed in the land of the Indian pleased the white man, and nothing escaped his transforming hand. Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life - that to him is an “unbroken wilderness.” But, because for the Lakota there was no wilderness, because nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly, Lakota philosophy was healthy - free from fear and dogmatism. And here I find the great distinction between the faith of the Indian and the white man. Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surrounding; the other sought the dominance of surrounding. In sharing, in loving all and everything, one people naturally found a due portion of the thing they sought, while, in fearing, the other found need of conquest. For one man the world was full of beauty; for the other it was a place of sin and ugliness to be endured until he went to another world, there to become a creature of wings, half-man and half-bird. Forever one man directed his Mystery to change the world He had made; forever this man pleaded with Him to chastise the wicked ones; and forever he implored his God to send His light to earth. Small wonder this man could not understand the other. But the old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart, away from nature, become hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.

Beauty | Change | Children | Conquest | Distinction | Earth | Faith | Fear | God | Harmony | Heart | Influence | Land | Life | Life | Light | Man | Mystery | Nature | Need | Nothing | People | Philosophy | Quiet | Respect | Sin | Wise | Wonder | World | Respect | God | Old | Understand |

Joseph Murphy

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet mind. Anchor your thoughts on peace, poise, security and divine guidance and your mind will be productive of happiness.

Guidance | Mind | Peace | Quiet | Security | Will | Guidance |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Better | Ends | God | Love | Men | Passion | Quiet | Soul | God | Old |

Franz Boas, fully Franz Uri Boas

Remember that in every single case in history the process of adaptation has been one of exceeding slowness. Do not look for the impossible, but do not let your path deviate from the quiet and steadfast insistence on full opportunities for your powers.

History | Quiet |

François Fénelon, fully Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become toward the defects of others.

Defects | Imperfection | Quiet |