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 Gunther

All the wonderful things in life are so simple that one is not aware of their wonder until they are beyond touch. Never have I felt the wonder and beauty and joy of life so keenly as now in my grief that Johnny is not here to enjoy them.

Beauty | Grief | Joy | Life | Life | Wisdom | Wonder | Beauty |

Michael Harner

The shaman typically experiences ineffable joy in what he sees, an awe of the beautiful and mysterious worlds that open before him... He is a self-reliant explorer of the endless mansions of a magnificent hidden universe. Finally, he brings back his discoveries to build his knowledge and help others.

Awe | Joy | Knowledge | Self | Universe | Wisdom |

Henry Robert Harrower

The practical man is the adventurer, the investigator, the believer in research, the asker of questions, the man who refuses to believe that perfection has been attained... There is no thrill or joy in merely doing that which any one can do... It is always safe to assume, not that the old way is wrong, but that there may be a better way.

Better | Joy | Man | Perfection | Research | Safe | Wisdom | Wrong | Old |

David Hume

To be happy, the temperament must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy, is real riches; one to fear and sorrow is real poverty.

Fear | Happy | Hope | Joy | Melancholy | Poverty | Riches | Sorrow | Wisdom |

James Henry Leigh Hunt

God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness; and laughter is on top of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.

Despair | God | Laughter | Madness | Mirth | Reason | Sorrow | Tears | Wisdom |

Washington Irving

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open, this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude… The love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul.

Affliction | Duty | Love | Solitude | Sorrow | Wisdom |

David Hume

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

Fear | Hope | Joy | Poverty | Riches | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Frederick Dan Huntington

If we do not know what the sorrow of penitence is, we have been living only on the surface of life - unmindful of its deep realities, unconscious of its grander glories.

Life | Life | Sorrow | Wisdom |

Richard Hooker

Love is represented as the fulfilling of the law, a creature’s perfection. All other graces, all divine dispensations contribute to this, and are lost in it as in a heaven. It expels the dross of our nature; it overcomes sorrow; it is the full joy of our Lord.

Heaven | Joy | Law | Lord | Love | Nature | Perfection | Sorrow | Wisdom |

John Angell James

Let us never forget that, to be profited, that is, to be spiritually improved in knowledge, faith, holiness, joy and love, is the end of hearing sermons, and not merely to have our taste gratified by genius, eloquence and oratory.

Faith | Genius | Joy | Knowledge | Love | Oratory | Taste | Wisdom |

Herrick Johnson

God is merely tuning the soul as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation - preludes to the perfect harmony that shall flood the soul - forerunners of the perfected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Eternal | Glory | God | Harmony | Joy | Life | Life | Soul | Wisdom |

Wanda Landowska

The most beautiful thing in the world is, precisely, the conjunction of learning and inspiration. Oh, the passion for research and the joy of discovery!

Inspiration | Joy | Learning | Passion | Research | Wisdom | World |

Andrew David Kopkind

To be a revolutionary is to love your life enough to change it, to choose struggle instead of exile, to risk everything with only the glimmering hope of a world to win...Woman loves with her whole soul. To woman love is life, to man it is the joy of life.

Change | Enough | Hope | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Man | Risk | Soul | Struggle | Wisdom | Woman | World |

Abraham Isaac Kook

The soul sings all the time; joy and sweetness are her garments; high-minded tenderness envelops her.

Joy | Soul | Tenderness | Time | Wisdom |