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

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the 'thorn in the flesh' is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent.

Defects | Imperfection | Life | Life | Light | Perfection | Progress | Suffering | Wholeness | Wisdom |

Elizabeth Klarer

In aging, the (one's) inner clock slows down while earth time remains constant. Your planet continues to move in three directions at the same time, giving to you your speed or flow of time, past, present and future. There is less time to do things as one grows older and time is speeded up because the living body processes are slowing down. Time is a wave-motion in a triple unity with light and gravity.

Body | Earth | Future | Giving | Light | Past | Present | Time | Unity | Wisdom |

Louis Kossuth, also Lajos Kossuth, fully Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva

I know that there is one God in heaven, the Father of all humanity, and heaven is therefore one. I know that there is one sun in the sky, which gives light to all the world. As there is unity in God, and unity in the light, so is there unity in the principles of freedom. Whatever it is broken, wherever a shadow is cast upon the sunny rays of the sun of liberty, there is always danger of free principles everywhere in the world.

Danger | Father | Freedom | God | Heaven | Humanity | Liberty | Light | Principles | Unity | Wisdom | World | Danger | God |

John Locke

He that takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope.

Better | Light | Man | Reason | Receive | Revelation | Wisdom |

Norman Macleod

A man may be a miser of his wealth; he may tie up his talent in a napkin; he may hug himself in his reputation; but he is always generous in his love. Love cannot keep it to himself. Like light is constantly traveling. A man must spend it, must give it away.

Light | Love | Man | Reputation | Wealth | Wisdom | Talent |

Richard Newton

The light of the sun, the light of the moon, and the light of the air, in nature, and substance are one and the same light, and yet they are there distinct lights: the light of the sun being of itself, and from none; the light of the moon from the sun; and the light of the air from them both. So the Divine Nature is one, and the persons three; subsisting, after a diverse manner, in one and the same Nature.

Light | Nature | Wisdom |

William Mountford

The light of genius is sometimes so resplendent as to make a man walk through life, amid glory and acclamation; but it burns very dimly and low when carried into “the valley of the shadow of death.” But faith is like the evening star, shining into our souls the more brightly, the deeper is the night of death in which they sink.

Death | Faith | Genius | Glory | Life | Life | Light | Man | Wisdom |

Jane Porter

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

Heart | Light | Wisdom |

Plotinus NULL

Beauty is rather a light that plays over the symmetry of things than that symmetry itself.

Beauty | Light | Wisdom |

Frank Scully

Since the beginning of civilization we have explained our existence in terms of what we could observe... Maybe we will discover that the only true reality is a state of mind, shaped by the information we can process and contexts in which we see it. Maybe the Supreme Being we call God can best be appreciated as the power of ultimate understanding. Maybe our destination has always been to learn and grow as we approach the light of ultimate understanding. Only the context of our ability to process information changes.

Ability | Beginning | Civilization | Existence | God | Light | Mind | Power | Reality | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | God | Learn |

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

It is the same with understanding as with eyes; to a certain size and make, just so much light is necessary, and no more. Whatever is beyond brings darkness and confusion.

Darkness | Light | Size | Understanding | Wisdom |

Johann Jakob Scheuchzer

Each truth sparkles with a light of its own, yet it always reflects some light upon another; a truth, while lighting another, springs from one, in order to penetrate another. The first truth is an abundant sense, from which all others are colored, and each particular truth, in its turn, resembles a great river that divides into an infinite number of rivulets.

Light | Order | Sense | Truth | Wisdom |

Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof

Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.

Age | Beauty | Law | Light | Old age | Size | Wisdom | Worth |

Aloysius Michael Sullivan

The golden thread in the mind of man is the light that leads towards excellence as a human objective. If perfection is a divine attribute, excellence is a human incentive and a healthy aim, even when we fall short of the target.

Excellence | Light | Man | Mind | Perfection | Wisdom | Excellence |

Jeremy Taylor

Great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. For so have I heard that all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and toads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge checks the dissolutions of the tongue.

Knowledge | Light | Reason | Wisdom |