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

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Rites and vain repetitions have a legitimate place in religion as aids to recollectedness, reminders of truth momentarily forgotten in the turmoil of worldly distractions. When spoken or performed as a kind of magic, their use is either completely useless or else (and this is worse) it may have ego-enhancing results, which do not in any way contribute to the attainment of man’s final end.

Attainment | Character | Ego | Magic | Man | Religion | Rites | Truth | Turmoil |

Jean Ingelow

A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.

Beauty | Blessedness | Character | Hunger | Life | Life | Beauty |

William James

Our belief in truth itself.. that there is a truth, and that our minds and it are made for each other, what is it but a passionate affirmation of desire, in which our social system backs us up? We want to have a truth; we want to believe that our experiments and studies and discussions must put us in a continually better and better position towards it; and on this line we agree to fight out our thinking lives.

Belief | Better | Character | Desire | Position | System | Thinking | Truth |

George Horne

Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. Idleness will be shut out at every avenue, and with her that numerous body of vices that make up her train.

Body | Character | Idleness | Method | Time | Will |

David Hume

Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact. Whatever, therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason. Now ‘tis evident our passions, volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and realities, complete in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions, and actions. ‘Tis impossible, therefore, they can be pronounced either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to reason.

Character | Disagreement | Discovery | Existence | Falsehood | Ideas | Object | Reason | Truth | Discovery |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The beatitude into which the enlightened soul is delivered is something quite different from pleasure... Blessedness depends on non-attachment and selflessness, therefore can be enjoyed without satiety and without revulsion; is a participation in eternity, and therefore remains itself without diminution or fluctuation.

Blessedness | Character | Eternity | Pleasure | Satiety | Soul |

Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ

In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war, we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint.

Age | Character | Obligation | Peace | Restraint | Strength | War |

David Hume

Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.

Character | Disbelief | Morality | Peace | Reason | Society |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

Many people are mistaken about how they can improve their situation. They think they will have peace of mind only when they have obtained everything they desire. But this is erroneous. Gratifying desires does not bring lasting satisfaction. The only path to achieve satisfaction is to stop desiring more things. As long as a person is unable to control his desiring, his problems will not be overcome... The only way to find real satisfaction in life is to stop desiring what is beyond your reach.

Character | Control | Desire | Life | Life | Mind | Peace | People | Problems | Will | Think |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Our current neglect of Law is yet another of the many indications that twentieth-century educators have ceased to be concerned with questions of ultimate truth or meaning and (apart from mere vocational training) are interested solely in the dissemination of a rootless and irrelevant culture, and the fostering of the solemn foolery of scholarship for scholarship’s sake.

Character | Culture | Law | Meaning | Neglect | Training | Truth |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Knowing the truth carries with it an extraordinary responsibility. Meeting that responsibility can be your most rewarding experience.

Character | Experience | Knowing | Responsibility | Truth |

Eleazar Rokeach, Eleazor ben Judah ben Kalonymus, aka Eleazar of Worms

Hate ruins the very savor of food, the peace of sleep, all reverence in the soul.

Character | Hate | Peace | Reverence | Soul |

Gloria D. Karpinski

We draw to ourselves what we really want, not what we think we want. It’s not a bad idea to ask ourselves now and then, Whose truth are we living? Whose dream are we dreaming?

Character | Truth | Think |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Self-knowledge brings tranquillity to the mind, and then only can truth come into being. Truth cannot be sought after. Truth is the unknown, and that which you seek is already known. Truth comes into being unsought when the mind is without prejudice, when there is the understanding of the whole process of ourselves.

Character | Knowledge | Mind | Prejudice | Self | Self-knowledge | Tranquility | Truth | Understanding |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Aggression | Character | Love | Man | Method | Retaliation | Revenge |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Character | Error | Knowledge | Truth |