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

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

The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.

Advice | Art | Happy | Wisdom | Art |

Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville

In times when the passions are beginning to take charge of the conduct of human affairs, one should pay less attention to what men of experience and common sense are thinking than to what is preoccupying the imagination of dreamers.

Attention | Beginning | Common Sense | Conduct | Experience | Imagination | Men | Sense | Thinking | Wisdom |

Simone Weil

Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.

Attention | Prayer | Wisdom |

Richard Whately

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention as attention is of memory; therefore the first business of a teacher - first not only in point of time, but of importance - should be to excite not merely a general curiosity on the subject of the study, but a particular curiosity on particular points in that subject. To teach one who has no curiosity to learn is to sow a field without ploughing it.

Attention | Business | Curiosity | Memory | Study | Teach | Time | Wisdom | Business | Learn | Parent | Teacher |

Vedas, The Vedas NULL

What I seem to be is just a certain quality of my attention to my Self.

Attention | Self | Wisdom |

Saul Bellow

I feel that art has something to do with achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

Achievement | Art | Attention | Prayer | Art | Think |

E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson

Nothing comes harder than original thought. Even the most gifted scientist spends only a tiny fraction of his waking hours doing it, probably less than one tenth of one percent. the rest of the time his mind hugs the coast of the known, reworking old information, adding lesser data, giving reluctant attention to the ideas of others (what use can I make of them?), warming lazily to the memory of successful experiments, and looking for a problem - always looking for a problem, something that can be accomplished, that will lead somewhere, anywhere.

Attention | Giving | Ideas | Memory | Mind | Nothing | Rest | Thought | Time | Will | Wisdom | Old |

Carol Adrienne

Purpose is about developing relationships. Purpose is about bringing attention and intention into the present moment, moving ahead with new ideas, giving and receiving support, volunteering, mentoring, listening to the imagination and intuition, communicating, taking action based on inner direction and hints from the external, being adaptable, taking responsibility and ending the victim stance forever surrendering to the divine will and working with the lessons developing fluidity, tolerance, compassion, and the ability to love.

Ability | Action | Attention | Compassion | Giving | Ideas | Imagination | Intention | Intuition | Listening | Love | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Will | Victim |

Saul Bellow

Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm… an arrest of attention in the mist of distraction.

Achievement | Art | Attention | Prayer |

Robert Aris Willmott

The advice of a scholar, whose piles of learning were set on fire by imagination, is never to be forgotten. Proportion an hour's reflection to an hour's reading, and so dispirit the book into the student.

Advice | Imagination | Learning | Reading | Reflection | Scholar | Wisdom |

Saul Bellow

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

Achievement | Art | Attention | Prayer | Art | Think |

Warren Bennis, fully Warren Gamaliel Bennis

Leaders are people who focus attention on a vision. They know what they want and are very results-oriented. It’s their intense focus on worthwhile outcomes that draws others to them and to their cause.

Attention | Cause | Focus | People | Vision |

Joe Boot

Ultimately, what we invest our lives in reveals where our heart is. The man who says he loves his family but never spends time with them because he is obsessed with his work has greater love for his work than his family… The things to which we apportion most of our time, thought, and attention reveal where our treasure in life is truly found. If God is not foremost in our lives, if he is not our greatest treasure, he does not have our heart.

Attention | Family | God | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Man | Thought | Time | Work | God |

J. A. C. Brown, fully James Alexander Campbell Brown

All propaganda messages tend to occur in three stages: the stage of drawing attention and arousing interest, the stage of emotional stimulation, and the stage of showing how tension thus created can be relieved (i.e., by accepting the speaker’s advice).

Advice | Attention | Propaganda |

Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

Attention | Focus | Taste | Universe |

Gregg Braden

The possibilities of our future are actually determined by collective choices in the present. The evidence simply states that the choice of many people, focused in a specific manner, has a direct and measurable effect on our quality of life. Quantum physics suggests that by redirecting our focus – where we place our attention – we bring a new course of events into focus while at the same time releasing an existing course of events that may no longer serve us.

Attention | Choice | Events | Evidence | Focus | Future | Life | Life | People | Present | Time |

William Bridges, fully Sir William Throsby Bridges

Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.

Attention |