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

Islamic Proverbs

Haste is of the devil, slowness is of God.

Devil | God | Haste |

William Tecumseh Sherman

A bulky staff implies a division of responsibility, slowness of action, and indecision; whereas a small staff implies activity and concentration of purpose.

Action | Indecision | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility |

Joseph Roux

There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

David Swing, aka Professor Swing

Spirituality is one of the highest stages of civilization, and therefore comes latest in the course of human development. Material associations are the first, hence man first makes up his language and his pantheon of gods out of the solid sub stances that surround him. The first man was of the earth, earthy; the second man was the Lord from heaven. That is first which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. And as man has borne the image of the earthy, so shall he bear the image of the heavenly. The first Adam was made a living soul ; the second Adam a quickening spirit. In this great transition from the material to the spiritual, years are consumed in the life of the most earnest individual, and in the advance of society in this path a thousand years count only a little. The most sincere heart escapes from ma terialism so slowly, and so slowly resolves itself and its God into a quickening spirit, that an infinitely long existence would seem to be foreshadowed in this leisurely evolution. To that which grows slowly we attribute long time. The glacier and the accumulating shore of the sea, and the vast oaks of the Pacific slope ask us to allow them long periods in which to have developed their peculiar plan. So the slowness of human unfolding asks us to grant to the individual and to society a vast field called immortality. Instead of drawing only sadness from this tedious march we also find in it an assurance that there are many years beyond.

Existence | God | Heart | Individual | Language | Life | Life | Lord | Man | Sadness | Society | Soul | Society | God |

Stephan Jay Gould

In natural history, great discovery often requires a map to a hidden mine filled with gems then easily gathered by conventional tools, not a shiny new space-age machine for penetrating previously inaccessible worlds.

Blame | Evolution | Faith | Famous | Impression | Thought | Time | Thought |

Theophrastus NULL

Superstition is cowardice in the face of the Divine.

Speech |

Thucydides NULL

Their judgment was based more upon blind wishing than upon any sound prediction; for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.

Energy |