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

Elizabeth Gilbert

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

Ego | Mind | Perfection | Silence |

Elizabeth Lesser

Spirituality is fearlessness. It is a way of looking boldly at this life we have been given, here, now, on earth, as this human being.

Nature | Search | Truth |

Elizabeth Gilbert

The search for satisfaction to Aahdf to protection and interest Almatatin, but a generous gift to the world. Saved one of every misery, Azaha of the way. To dream an obstacle, not in front of himself, but also in front of others. Only then will be free to serve the people and enjoy Bhbhm.

Belief | Destiny | Faith | God | Hope | Humanity | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Search | Will | God |

Elizabeth Lesser

Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.

Attention | Divinity | Longing | Meditation | Mysticism | Nature | Religion | Self | Spirituality | Time | Friends |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated staue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket. Prayer is a realtionship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can't even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I'm ainming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don't have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift.

Belief | Books | Care | Decision | Destiny | Divinity | Faith | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Reason | Religion | Scripture | Will | God |

Elizabeth Lesser

Are you becoming more and more aware of the interconnection of all beings, creatures and elements? Do you hold as your own Jesus' words: 'And whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me'? Are you getting tired of the way our society celebrates the false ego's selfish and insatiable drive to acquire and use more and more? And does that make you want to be an agent of healing? A declaration of life's interdependence is a sign of spiritual progress.

Arrogance | Fear | Fighting | Health | Life | Life | Listening | Nature | Practice | Soul | Surrender | Uncertainty | Will |

Elizabeth Gould Davis

Men insist that they don't mind women succeeding so long as they retain their "femininity". Yet the qualities that men consider "feminine" timidity, submissiveness, obedience, silliness, and self-debasement — are the very qualities best guaranteed to assure the defeat of even the most gifted aspirant.

Nature | Qualities | Sense |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

For me it will be enough that a marble stone should declare that a queen having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.

Nature |

Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

I thought that prattling boys and girls would fill this empty room; that my rich heart would gather flowers From childhood's opening bloom. One child and two green graves are mine, this is God's gift to me; a bleeding, fainting, broken heart— This is my gift to Thee.

Need | Perfection | Reason | Will | Learn | Understand |

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, fully Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

It is not in our drawing-rooms that we should look to judge of the intrinsic worth of any style of dress. The street-car is a truer crucible of its inherent value.

Nature |

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, fully Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

Perfection | Understand |

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, fully Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn.

Absolute | Attainment | Labor | Means | Nature | Sacrifice | Woman | Worth |

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Because man and woman are the complement of one another, we need woman's thought in national affairs to make a safe and stable government.

Action | Argument | Association | Church | Consideration | Convention | God | Hope | Nature | Will | Woman | Association | God |

Dorothy Parker

It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes.

Better | Fighting | Hell | Men | Thought | Woman | Old | Thought |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

Marriages on earth--because they are the seminaries of the human race and of the angels of heaven also; because, likewise, they proceed from a spiritual origin, that is, from the marriage of good and truth; and since, in addition, the Lord's divine proceeding principally flows into conjugal love--are most holy in the estimation of the angels.

Man | Nature |

Emil Nolde

The art of an artist must be his own art. It is... always a continuous chain of little inventions, little technical discoveries of one's own, in one's relation to the tool, the material and the colors.

Nature |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand most secret ways.

Body | Death | Individual | Meaning | Means | Nature | People | Spirit | Thought | World | Thought |

Emile Zola

Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.

Church | Perfection | Will |

Emile Zola

Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people's cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext.

Art | Nature | Work | Art |

Emile Zola

Angelique, with both hands open, lying limply on her knees, was giving herself. And Felicien remembered the evening on which she had run barefoot through the grass, so adorable that he had pursued her, and whispered in her ear, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you. And he understood full well that only now had she replied, with the same cry, I love you, the eternal cry that had finally emerged from her wide-open heart. I love you... Take me, carry me away, I am yours.

Care | Cause | Crime | Day | Disgrace | Earth | Exploit | God | Important | Life | Life | Love | Mother | Nature | Pain | Suffering | Tears | World | God | Vice |