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

Victor Hugo

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.

Need | Soul |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

We can never finally know. I simply believe that some part of human self or soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.

Self | Soul | Space | Time |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

This is the nature of the unenlightened mind: the sense organs, which are limited in scope and ability, randomly gather information. This partial information is arranged into judgments, which are based on previous judgments, which are usually based on someone’s else’s foolish ideas. These false concepts and ideas are then stored in a highly selective memory system. Distortion upon distortion: the mental energy flows constantly through contorted and inappropriate channels, and the more one uses the mind, the more confused one becomes.

Ability | Energy | Ideas | Memory | Mind | Nature | Sense | System |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

The true master understands that enlightenment is not the end but the means. Realizing that virtue is her goal, she accepts the long and often arduous cultivation that is necessary to attain it. She doesn’t scheme to become a leader, but quietly shoulders whatever responsibilities fall to her. Unattached to her accomplishments, taking credit for nothing at all, she guides the whole world by guiding the individuals who come to her. she share her divine energy with her students, encouraging them, creating trials to strengthen them, scolding them to awaken them, directing the streams of their lives toward the infinite ocean of the Tao.

Credit | Cultivation | Energy | Enlightenment | Means | Nothing | Trials | Virtue | Virtue | World |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.

Personality | Soul |

Francis Xavier Lasance, fully The Reverend Francis Xavier Lasance

The great enemy of the soul is not trial but sadness, which is the bleeding wound of self-love.

Enemy | Love | Sadness | Self | Self-love | Soul | Trial |

Jack Klugman

Hope awakens courage. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician.

Courage | Hope | Soul |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched, and therefore unchanged. His soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in his soul the Christian has not kept pace with external developments. Yes, everything is to e found outside – in image and in word, in Church and Bible – but never inside. Inside reign the archaic gods, supreme as of old.

Bible | Church | Civilization | Man | Soul | Bible |

Robert I. Kahn

Prayer is a way of increasing our sensitivity to the spiritual aspects of life. From this point of view, it is very much like exercise. A man’s muscles become responsive by training... The soul is stretched and enlarged by prayer just as the body is stretched and enlarged by physical exercise... Prayer is a way of aspiration. It is a way of lifting ourselves, of getting a higher look, of transcending self. For when a man looks at life only from inside himself, or only from within the walls of his home, or profession, seeing the world as though it were all in terms of his special interests, then he is “too full of himself to have any room for God.” But in prayer, he... relates his own little life and his own little needs and life of humanity. He lifts himself up by prayer, and achieves a high spiritual stature.

Aspiration | Body | God | Humanity | Life | Life | Little | Looks | Man | Prayer | Self | Soul | Training | World |

Edward Leen

As the soul ceases to be “self-regarding” in its activities, it becomes “god-regarding.”

God | Self | Soul |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The greater the tension, the greater is the potential. Great energy springs from a correspondingly great tension of opposites.

Energy |

Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

I believe in immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings. I believe that the state we enter after death is wrought of our own motives, thoughts, and deeds... I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one in the Presence of the Lord.

Death | Deeds | Faith | Heart | Immortality | Joy | Life | Life | Light | Lord | Magic | Motives | Soul |

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.

Soul | Words |

Luis Muñoz Marín

With your votes you are working for your future. It is not a holiday; it is the most serious day of work since you were born. Better to come in clothing dirty from work than with your soul filthy from having sold your right to justice.

Better | Day | Dirty | Future | Justice | Right | Soul | Work |

F. Malava

That soul is not idle which, holding itself in the presence of God, keeps interior silence… For the will to keep silence is an act of veneration.

God | Silence | Soul | Will |