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

William Ralph Inge

The nations which have put mankind most in their debt have been small states - Israel, Athens, Florence, Elizabethan England.

Debt | Mankind | Nations | Wisdom |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

No time exists other than now... So now is all you have and all you ever will have... Why not begin doing the best you can right where you are?... Trust the process of growth. Trust God. Pay attention to the details of your life, doing your very best with each challenge that presents itself... The past is the raw material of the present, but the past is not a blueprint for the present... Begin where you are. Do what you can. Even a small effort to change, to grow, to improve, will bring astonishing results... You can choose to build on what you were, but you are not what you were. You can focus on what you will be, but you are not what you will be. What you are is what you are right now - the inheritor of all of God’s gifts.

Attention | Challenge | Change | Effort | Focus | God | Growth | Life | Life | Past | Present | Right | Time | Trust | Will | Wisdom |

William James

I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness and of their souls’ resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.

Consciousness | Doubt | Habit | Life | Life | Little | Man | People | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into the primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.

Ego | Soul | Will | Wisdom |

J. Z. Knight, fully Judy Zebra Knight, born Judity Darlene Hampton

Mere survival has always been the surface, bottom-line surface for our existence... Survival alone does not ennoble us... True meaning... can be found in what we’ve yet to accomplish, in the realm of the unknown. We must resolve to look deep within, at the unrealized potential of our unevolved selves. Materially, the unknown is one vast nothingness; potentially, it is all things. The unknown within us is where all dreams, thoughts and genius are frozen. The act of searching to make known the unknown triggers the brain. It allows us to incorporate, in ourselves, a greater consciousness, lighting the way for our dreams to enact themselves. Although we seem small in comparison with the whole universe, we are equipped with the greatest cosmic hookup ever created: the human brain. The brain - linked unconsciously to the infinite mind where the unknown resides - only facilitates thoughts, it does not create it. In struggling to find the answer to why we exist, we awaken the infinite mind to the unknown, making known the unknown, bringing meaning to our existence and commonness to all.

Consciousness | Dreams | Existence | Genius | Meaning | Mind | Survival | Universe | Wisdom |

Francis Lieber

Great truths always dwell a long time with small minorities, and the real voice of God is often that which rises above the masses, not that which follows them.

God | Time | Wisdom | God | Truths |

Stanley Kubrick

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

Nations | Wisdom |

Laberius, full name Decimus Laberius NULL

A small sum makes a debtor, a larger sum an enemy.

Enemy | Wisdom |

James Russell Lowell

In life’s small things be resolute and great to keep thy muscle trained: know’st thou when Fate thy measure takes, or when she’ll say to thee, “I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?”

Fate | Life | Life | Wisdom | Fate |

Daniel March

Proverbs are in the world of thought what gold coin is in the world of business - great value in small compass, and equally current among all people. Sometimes the proverb may be false, the coin counterfeit, but in both cases the false proves the value of the true.

Business | Gold | People | Proverbs | Thought | Wisdom | World | Business | Thought | Value |

Alexander Maclaren

Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God’s hand gives the impulse and direction.

Care | God | Impatience | Impulse | Wills | Wisdom | God |

John Locke

The improvement of the understanding is for two ends; first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.

Ends | Improvement | Knowledge | Understanding | Wisdom |

Manilius, fully Marcus Manilius NULL

Every one is in a small way the image of God.

God | Wisdom |

Samuel Joseph May

If it is a small sacrifice to discontinue the use of wine, do it for the sake of others; if it is a great sacrifice, do it for your own.

Sacrifice | Wisdom |

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morely of Blackburn, Lord Morley

A mind too proud to unbend over the small ridiculosa of life is as painful as a library with no trash in it.

Life | Life | Mind | Wisdom |