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

Wilkie Collins, fully William Wilkie Collins

Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.

Day | Mind | Peace | Reason | Wisdom |

Anne Dillard

A mind risks real ignorance for the sometimes paltry prize of an imagination enriched. The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world - if only from time to time.

Ignorance | Imagination | Mind | Reason | Time | Wisdom | World |

George Douglas Brown, pseud. Kennedy King

Immortality! We bow before the very term. Immortality! Before its reason staggers, calculation reclines her tired head, and imagination folds her weary pinions. Immortality! It throws open the portals of the vast forever; it puts the crown of deathless destiny upon every human brow; it cries to every uncrowned king of men, “Live forever, crowned for the empire of a deathless destiny!”

Destiny | Imagination | Immortality | Men | Reason | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

A knowledge of our existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

Beauty | Existence | Knowledge | Man | Reason | Sense | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason they cannot be destroyed by logic.

Argument | Logic | Reason | Wisdom |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

We part more easily with what we possess, than with the expectation of what we wish for: and the reason of it is, that what we expect is always greater than what we enjoy.

Expectation | Reason | Wisdom | Expectation |

Albert Einstein

Those who rage today against the ideals of reason and of individual freedom, and seek to impose an insensate state of slavery by means of brutal force, rightly see in the Jews irreconcilable opponents.

Force | Freedom | Ideals | Individual | Means | Rage | Reason | Slavery | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

Ridicule may be the evidence of wit or bitterness and may gratify a little mind, or an ungenerous temper, but it is no test of reason and truth.

Bitterness | Evidence | Little | Mind | Reason | Ridicule | Temper | Truth | Wisdom | Wit |

Dudley Doolittle

To reason with a wised man is easy; with a fool, impossible.

Man | Reason | Wisdom |

William Drummond, fully Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden

He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave.

Reason | Will | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Awe | Curiosity | Day | Enough | Eternity | Important | Life | Life | Little | Mystery | Reality | Reason | Wisdom |

Nathanael Emmons, also Nathaniel Emmons

One principal reason why men are so often useless is, that they divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

Attention | Men | Reason | Wisdom |

Tyron Edwards

It is not true that there are no enjoyments in the ways of sin; there are, many and various. But the great and radical defect of them all is, that they are transitory and insubstantial, at war with reason and conscience, and always leave a sting behind... They may and often do satisfy us for a moment; but it is death in the end. It is the bread of heaven and the water of life that can so satisfy that we shall hunger no more and thirst no more forever.

Conscience | Death | Heaven | Hunger | Life | Life | Reason | Sin | War | Wisdom |

Freeman John Dyson

There are three reasons why, quite apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first reason is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second reason is to escape material impoverishment; the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forgo forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third reason is our spiritual need for an open frontier. The ultimate purpose of space travel is to bring to humanity, not only scientific discoveries and an occasional spectacular show on television, but a real expansion of our spirit.

Abundance | Earth | Energy | Humanity | Mankind | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Space | Spirit | Television | Wisdom |

Jerry Falwell

No earthly purpose satisfies man’s longing to find his eternal reason for being... Man seeks incessantly for the meaning of life until he discovers the single eternal purpose for his existence. That purpose is the same for every man and woman. God created us because He longs to enter into fellowship with us. We belong to Him by right of creation. We can never know order and harmony in this life until we choose to establish a right relationship with God... Our search for meaning to life will end only when we establish that personal relationship with God and begin our walk with Him - for time and for eternity. Then comes that glorious personal fulfillment described in holy writ as the “peace that passes all understanding.”

Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Fulfillment | God | Harmony | Life | Life | Longing | Man | Meaning | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Relationship | Right | Search | Time | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | Woman | God |

William Maxwell Evarts

Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of ascent, was adjustable on principles of the common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

Authority | Capacity | Civilization | Culture | Government | Man | Mankind | Morality | People | Principles | Progress | Reason | Redemption | Security | Society | Title | Wisdom |

Henry Ford

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probably reason why so few engage in it.'

Reason | Thinking | Wisdom | Work |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few.

Emotions | Property | Reason | Wisdom |