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

Joe Flying Bye

In this modern time you have to do your best yourself. That’s your answer to “What is life?” You must do it yourself. Your doing, your thinking. The answers to the meaning of life are inside you.

Character | Life | Life | Meaning | Thinking | Time |

Henry Fielding

Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart, while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest - affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.

Character | Compassion | Contempt | Good | Heart | Little | Mind | Motives |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes - dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery.

Character | Desire | Dignity | Enough | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Search | Spirit | Truth | Will |

Philip Glass

Maybe the purpose of life is not as important as the process of growth that’s integral with being alive... In answering the question “What’s the meaning of life?” maybe the people who have taken the challenges of life as meaningful are the best ones to ask... These are the people who have appreciated and taken advantage of the possibilities life has to offer. They find life precious.

Character | Growth | Important | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Purpose | Purpose | Question |

Robert Hall

If we look back upon the usual course of our feelings, we shall find that we are more influenced by the frequent recurrence of objects than by their weight and importance; and that habit has more force in forming our habits than our opinions have. The mind naturally takes its tone and complexion from what it habitually contemplates.

Character | Feelings | Force | Habit | Mind |

Avraham Grodzinski

The purpose of suffering is to arouse a person to improve his ways and this is the greatest good for a person. This love of the Almighty manifest in suffering is not merely to save a person from retribution in the afterlife, but also to elevate a person and assist him in attaining more virtues.

Afterlife | Character | Good | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering |

Richard Guggenheimer, fully Richard Henry Guggenheimer

Unless a life is activated by sustained purpose it can become a depressingly haphazard affair.

Character | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose |

Samuel H. Holdenson

Kindness is the inability to remain at ease in the presence of another person who is ill at ease, the inability to remain comfortable in the presence of another who is uncomfortable, the ability to have peace of mind when one's neighbor is troubled.

Ability | Character | Kindness | Mind | Peace |

Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

He only is great at heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career. And he is greatest who does the most of all these things and does them best.

Character | Heart | Mind | Will | World |

Ralph Hitz

I have found it helpful to keep constantly in mind that there are really two entries to be made for every transaction - one in terms of immediate dollars and cents, the other in terms of goodwill.

Character | Mind |

Henry J. Golding

What our deepest self craves is not mere enjoyment, but some supreme purpose that will enlist all our powers and will give unity and direction to our life. We can never know the profoundest joy without a conviction that our life is significant - not a meaningless episode. The loftiest aim of human life is the ethical perfecting of mankind - the transfiguration of humanity.

Character | Enjoyment | Humanity | Joy | Life | Life | Mankind | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Unity | Will |

William Henry Harrison

The virtuous mind that ever walks attended by a strong siding champion, conscience.

Character | Conscience | Mind |

John P. Grier

The function of values is to give us the illusion of purpose in life.

Character | Illusion | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose |

Costen Jordan Harrell

The heart will not long follow what the mind does not accept as true and trustworthy.

Character | Heart | Mind | Will |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The meaning of man's life lies in his perfecting the universe. He has to distinguish, father and redeem the sparks of holiness scattered throughout the darkness of the world. This service is the motive of all precepts and good deeds.

Character | Darkness | Deeds | Distinguish | Father | Good | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Service | Universe | World |