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

John Dewey

We are weak today in ideal matters because intelligence is divorced from aspiration. The bare force of circumstance compels us onwards in the daily detail of our beliefs and acts, but our deeper thoughts and desires turn backwards. When philosophy shall have co-operated with the course of events and made clear and coherent the meaning of the daily detail, science and emotion will interpenetrate, practice and imagination will embrace. Poetry and religious feeling will be the unforced flowers of life. To further this articulation and revelation of the meanings of the current course of events is the task and problem of philosophy in days of transition.

Aspiration | Events | Force | Imagination | Intelligence | Life | Life | Meaning | Philosophy | Poetry | Practice | Revelation | Science | Will | Wisdom | Circumstance |

Albert Einstein

He to whom this emotion is a stranger; who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Awe | Good | Wisdom | Wonder |

Tyron Edwards

True religion extends alike to the intellect and the heart. Intellect is in vain if it lead not to emotion, and emotion is vain if not enlightened by intellect; and both are vain if not guided by truth and leading to duty.

Duty | Heart | Religion | Truth | Wisdom | Intellect |

George Gissing, fully George Robert Gissing

The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into thought.

Influence | Life | Life | Mind | Soul | Thought | Wisdom | Truths |

William Wordsworth

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.

Feelings | Poetry | Tranquility | Wisdom |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

It is the emotion which drives the intelligence forward in spite of obstacles.

Intelligence |

Gregg Braden

The equation of active prayer: If Thought = emotion = feeling then our world mirrors the effect of our prayer

Prayer | Thought | World | Thought |

Gregg Braden

The way that we attune to our possible outcomes is through our viewpoint of life. From this perspective, every life-threatening condition of each body is already healed, peace is already present, and every child, woman, and man of our world is already fed. Now we are invited to choose the quality of thought, feeling, and emotion that allows us to “bend” the waves of time and bring these conditions into the focus of the present.

Body | Focus | Life | Life | Man | Peace | Present | Thought | Time | Woman | World |

Gregg Braden

Emotion may be considered the source of power that drives us forward toward our goals in life. It is through the energy of our emotions that we fuel our thought to make them real. It is in the presence of thought that our emotion is given direction, breathing life into the image of our thoughts

Emotions | Energy | Goals | Life | Life | Power | Thought | Thought |

Albert Einstein

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their primitive forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitutes true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

Art | Beauty | Existence | Experience | Fear | Good | Knowledge | Man | Mystery | Reason | Religion | Science | Sense | Wonder | Art |

L. Francis Edmunds

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.

Art | Experience | Fear | Good | Mystery | Religion | Science | Wonder | Art |

Millicent Fenwick

Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.

Pity | Self |

Shadworth Hodgson, fully Shadworth Hollway Hodgson

Love is the great subduing, transforming, and harmonizing emotion in human nature. And it is love alone by which responsive love is awakened, or on account of which love is felt in return. Ultimately therefore, it is the love of God for man, and that alone, which redeems the man; because that love alone calls forth in return that love of man for God, by which man’s whole nature is transformed.

God | Human nature | Love | Man | Nature | God |

Maria Montessori

At particular epochs of their life, [children] reveal an intense and extraordinary interest in certain objects and exercises, which one might look for in vain at a later age… Such attention is not the results of mere curiosity; it is more like a burning passion. A keen emotion first rises from the depths of the unconscious, and sets in motion a marvelous creative activity in contact with the outside world, thus building up consciousness.

Age | Attention | Children | Consciousness | Curiosity | Life | Life | Passion | World |

William Wordsworth

All good poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

Feelings | Good | Poetry |

Albert Einstein

The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is good as dead.

Awe | Experience | Good | Mystical | Science | Wonder |

Irving Singer

Love is emotion that issues into action and often employs the greatest powers of creativity.

Action | Creativity | Love |