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

Richard Dawkins

It is a very helpful insight to say we are vehicles for our DNA, we are hosts for DNA parasites which are our genes. Those are insights which help us to understand an aspect of life. But it's emotive to say, that's all there is to it, we might as well give up going to Shakespeare plays and give up listening to music and things, because that's got nothing to do with it. That's an entirely different subject.

Insight | Listening | Music | Nothing | Understand |

Richard E. Byrd, fully Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr.

in accidents blindness chance conviction cosmology day death despair doubt feeling force harmony heart intelligence listening music Peace purpose reason Silence universe

Chance | Day | Death | Despair | Doubt | Force | Harmony | Heart | Intelligence | Listening | Music | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Silence |

Robert Frost

The Sound of the Trees - I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of going But never gets away; And that talks no less for knowing, As it grows wiser and older, That now it means to stay. My feet tug at the floor And my head sways to my shoulder Sometimes when I watch trees sway, From the window or the door. I shall set forth for somewhere, I shall make the reckless choice Some day when they are in voice And tossing so as to scare The white clouds over them on. I shall have less to say, But I shall be gone.

Choice | Day | Listening | Means | Noise | Sound | Wonder |

Samuel Egerton Brydges

Nil admirari is the motto which men of the world always affect. They think it vulgar to wonder, or be enthusiastic. They have so much corruption and so much charlatanism that they think the credit of all high qualities must be delusive.

Listening | Silence | Wonder |

Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

Better | Greed | Listening | Power | Suffering | Will | Forgive | Friends | Think |

Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes towards Man, out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence - trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening.

Art | Church | Consciousness | Dependence | Evolution | Listening | Religion | Revelation | Sacred | Unity | Words | Art |

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

The sword of reality is the saint's protection.

Listening |

Saint Teresa of Ávila, aka Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada NULL

Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with Him continually, and you will not sin, will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.

Care | Honor | Listening | Praise |

Saint Thomas Aquinas, aka Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis or Doctor Universalis

Peace is the work of justice indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace; but it is the work of charity (love) directly, since charity, according to its very notion, causes peace.

Better | Day | God | Listening | Love | Woman | God | Learn | Old |

Sam Keen

The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.

Better | Compassion | Conversation | Listening | Story |

Salvador de Madariaga, fully Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo

The criminal excesses of unlimited capitalistic liberty had soon been checked thanks to the unlimited liberty of the press.

Leisure | Listening | Reading |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

Books | Enough | Important | Influence | Knowledge | Listening | People | Psychoanalysis | Reading | Time |

Shunryu Suzuki, also Daisetsu Teitaro or D.T. Suzuki or Suzuki-Roshi

Never pretend to a love you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Listening |

Simone Weil

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.

Compassion | Listening |

Stephen Hawking

Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.

Listening |

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!

Listening | Pity | Regard | Right | Slander | Speech | Slander |

Théophile Gautier, fully Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier, aka Le Bon Theo

Down comes rain drop, bubble follows; On the house-top one by one Flock the synagogue of swallows, Met to vote that autumn's gone.

Dreams | Listening | Meaning | Opposition | Remorse | Soul | Style | Thought | Thought |

Thich Nhất Hanh

There is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is.

Freedom | Ideas | Important | Joy | Listening | Order | Practice | Sound |

Thomas Berry

We cannot discover ourselves without first discovering the universe, the earth, and the imperatives of our own being. Each of these has a creative power and a vision far beyond any rational thought or cultural creation of which we are capable.

Conversation | Listening | Talking |

Thich Nhất Hanh

You can use your life in a very useful and intelligent way. You can very well transform that negative energy into a positive energy that empowers you and makes life meaningful.

Listening | Order | Practice | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering |