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

Parks Cousins

How things look on the outside of us depends on how things are on the inside of us. Stay close to the heart of nature and forget his troubled world. Remember, there is nothing wrong with nature, the trouble is in ourselves.

Character | Heart | Nature | Nothing | Wisdom | World | Wrong | Trouble |

Friedrich Engels

Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives or systematically making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves - two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the subject.

Capacity | Character | Ends | Existence | Freedom | Good | Knowledge | Means | Men | Nature | Nothing | Reality | Thought | Will | Work | Govern | Thought |

John Dewey

Moral principles that exalt themselves by degrading human nature are in effect committing suicide.

Character | Human nature | Nature | Principles | Suicide |

Lammot du Pont

People may change their minds as often as their coats, and new sets of rules of conduct may be written every week, but the fact remains that human nature has not changed and does not change, that inherent human beliefs stay the same; the fundamental rules of human conduct continue to hold.

Change | Character | Conduct | Human nature | Nature | People |

Charles Alexander Eastman, first named Ohiyesa

The first American mingled with her pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that his power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over “dumb creation”; on the other hand, speech to him is a perilous gift. He believes profoundly in silence - the sign of perfect equilibrium. silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The an who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shining pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life.

Absolute | Arrogance | Balance | Body | Character | Conduct | Existence | Humility | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | Power | Pride | Silence | Speech | Spirit | Superiority |

Arthur Powell Davies

Life is not the creature of circumstance. Indeed, in the whole universe of everything that is, life alone, life by its very nature, is the antagonist of circumstance... If there is any one thing that is utterly clear about the nature of life, it is that it was meant to master circumstance. The spirit conquers all things when the spirit wills it, and no excuse remains when we fail to live as we wish.

Character | Life | Life | Nature | Spirit | Universe | Wills |

John Dewey

Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active, and elaborate technique of inquiry... Pure reasoning as a means of arriving at truth is like the spider who spins a web out of himself. The web is orderly and elaborate, but is s only a trap.

Character | Inquiry | Means | Nature | Principles | Truth |

Tyron Edwards

Firmness in adherence to truth and duty is generally most decided when most intelligent and conscientious, and is sometimes mistaken for obstinacy by those who do not comprehend its nature and motive.

Character | Duty | Firmness | Nature | Truth |

John Dewey

Happiness is fundamental in morals only because happiness is not something to be sought for, but is something now attained, even in the midst of pain and trouble, whenever recognition of our ties with nature and with fellow-men releases and informs our action.

Action | Character | Men | Nature | Pain | Happiness |

Henry Fielding

There is a sort of knowledge beyond the power of learning to bestow, and this is to be had in conversation; so necessary is this to the understanding the characters of men, that none are more ignorant of them than those learned pedants whose lives have been entirely consumed in colleges and among books; for however exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Books | Character | Conversation | Human nature | Knowledge | Learning | Men | Nature | Power | System | Understanding | World |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

The unconscious is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness as is the external world by the reports of our sense-organs.

Character | Consciousness | Nature | Reality | Sense | World |

J. G. Fichte, fully Johann Gottlieb Fichte

What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it. A person indolent by nature or dulled and distorted by mental servitude, learned luxury, and vanity will never raise himself to the level of idealism.

Character | Idealism | Luxury | Man | Nature | Philosophy | Servitude | Soul | System | Will |

French Student Revolt Graffiti NULL

No one can understand unless, holding to his own nature, he respects the free nature of others.

Character | Nature | Understand |

Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud

Our best hope for the future is that the intellect - the scientific spirit, reason - should in time establish a dictatorship over the human mind. The very nature of reason is a guarantee that it would not fail to concede to human emotions, and to all that is determined by them, the position to which they are entitled. But the common pressure exercised by such a domination of reason would prove to be the strongest unifying force among men, and would prepare the way for further unifications. Whatever, like the ban laid upon thought by religion, opposes such a development is a danger for the future of mankind.

Character | Danger | Emotions | Force | Future | Guarantee | Hope | Mankind | Men | Mind | Nature | Position | Reason | Religion | Spirit | Thought | Time | Danger | Intellect | Thought |

Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland

A man who feels that his religion is a slavery has not begun to comprehend the real nature of religion.

Character | Man | Nature | Religion | Slavery |

Robert Hall

Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself.

Cause | Character | Charity | Evil | Good | Love | Nature | Neutrality | Safe | Unity |

Aaron Hill

Shun fear, it is the ague of the soul! a passion man created for himself - for sure that cramp of nature could not dwell in the warm realms of glory.

Character | Fear | Glory | Man | Nature | Passion | Soul |

Roy M. Goodman

Good nature is the very air of a good mind; the sign of a large and generous soul, and the peculiar soil in which virtue prospers.

Character | Good nature | Good | Mind | Nature | Soul | Virtue | Virtue |

Thomas Hobbes

Our nature is inseparable from desires, and the very word “desire” (the craving for something not possessed) implies that our present felicity is not complete.

Character | Desire | Nature | Present |