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

William Penn

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

Body | Character | Mind | Rest | Silence | Spirit |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

We need above all to learn again to believe in the possibility of nobility of spirit in ourselves.

Character | Need | Nobility | Spirit | Learn |

Tatjana Patitz

I believe that being true to the self is the most important thing in life - to have a free heart, a pure soul and a pure mind. We all live, or should live, for the fulfillment of the self. We are all mirror images of each other; whatever we feel in ourselves we feel in others. I believe that we create our own lives... Intuition should play the main role in everything we do. Through the creative source of the mind and the unlimited power of the spirit all our deepest wishes come true. For me the meaning is that we are all one, and the only true reality is the spirit. Believing in the power of spirit is simply to have a passion for life, to learn, to grow, to evolve and most of all to love, and live each day and each moment of the day to the fullest.

Character | Day | Fulfillment | Heart | Important | Intuition | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mind | Passion | Play | Power | Reality | Self | Soul | Spirit | Wishes |

Vita Sackville-West, fully The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson

Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of a man's life.

Action | Character | Life | Life | Man | Serenity | Spirit |

Satchidananda, fully Swami Satchidananda, born C. K. Ramaswamy Gounder NULL

I would sit quietly for hours and hours in meditation, but nothing came to my heart. I didn’t feel or realize anything... Then I learned to pray for the sake of prayer and not for anything else. I would not be satisfied with anything but God. If our prayers are that sincere and our interest is only in God and nothing else, then God cannot sit quietly somewhere. He has to run to us. If we need help, it is always waiting. All we need to do is ask sincerely.

Character | God | Heart | Meditation | Need | Nothing | Prayer | Waiting | God |

Lydia Sigourney, fully Lydia Huntley Sigourney, née Lydia Howard Huntley

To attain excellence in society, an assemblage of qualification is requisite: disciplined intellect, to think clearly, and to clothe thought with propriety and elegance; knowledge of human nature, to suit subject to character; true politeness, to prevent giving pain; a deep sense of morality, to preserve the dignity of speech; and a spirit of benevolence, to neutralize its asperities, and sanctify its powers.

Benevolence | Character | Dignity | Elegance | Excellence | Giving | Human nature | Knowledge | Morality | Nature | Pain | Sense | Society | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Excellence | Think | Thought |

Samuel Smiles

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

Character | Growth | Individual | Self | Spirit | Strength |

Robert Southey

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.

Absolute | Character | Contentment | Immortality | Man | Nature | Rest | Spirit |

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury

Charity should be the habit of our estimates; kindness of our feelings; benevolence of our affections; cheerfulness of our social intercourse; generosity of our living; improvement of our progress; prayer of our desires; fidelity of our sex-examination; being and doing good of our entire life.

Benevolence | Character | Charity | Cheerfulness | Feelings | Fidelity | Generosity | Good | Habit | Improvement | Kindness | Life | Life | Prayer | Progress |

Peter Sterry

Didst thou every descry a glorious eternity in a winged moment of time? Didst thou ever see a bright infinite in the narrow point of an object? Then thou knowest what spirit means - the spire-top, whither all things ascend harmoniously, where they meet and sit contented in an unfathomed Depth of Life.

Character | Eternity | Life | Life | Means | Object | Spirit | Time |

William Temple, fully Archbishop William Temple

The right relation between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer may help it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it.

Character | Conduct | Important | Prayer | Right |

Sufi Proverbs

When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found.

Character | Heart | Spirit |

John P. Webster

The chiefest action for a man of spirit is never to be out of action; the soul was never put into the body to stand still.

Action | Body | Character | Man | Soul | Spirit |