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

Leo Booth

Religious addiction is using God, the Church, or a belief system as an escape from reality, in an attempt to find or elevate a sense of self-worth or well-being... It is the ultimate form of co-dependency - feeling worthless in and of ourselves and looking outside for something or someone to tell us we are worthwhile... Recovery means discovering divinity in one's own life.

Addiction | Belief | Church | Divinity | God | Life | Life | Means | Reality | Self | Self-worth | Sense | System | Wisdom | Worth |

Brillat-Savarin, fully Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin NULL

The destiny of countries (nations) depends on the way they feed themselves.

Destiny | Nations | Wisdom |

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton

We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever.

Destiny | Earth | Will | Wisdom |

Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

Belief | Knowledge | Man | Self | Self-knowledge | Wisdom |

Declaration of American Women NULL

Man-made barriers, laws, social customs and prejudices continue to keep a majority of women in an inferior position without full control of our lives and bodies. From infancy throughout life, in personal and public relations, in the family, in the schools, in every occupation and profession, too often we find our individuality, our capabilities, our earning powers diminished by discriminatory practices and outmoded ideas of what a woman is, what a woman can do, and what a woman must be... We lack effective political and economic power We have only minor and insignificant roles in making, interpreting and enforcing our laws, in running our political parties, businesses, unions, schools and institutions, in directing the media, in governing our country, in deciding issues of war or peace. We do not seek special privileges, but we demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our nation, our families and our individual lives.

Control | Destiny | Family | Ideas | Individual | Individuality | Infancy | Life | Life | Majority | Man | Occupation | Peace | Position | Power | Public | Right | War | Wisdom | Woman | World |

George Douglas Brown, pseud. Kennedy King

Immortality! We bow before the very term. Immortality! Before its reason staggers, calculation reclines her tired head, and imagination folds her weary pinions. Immortality! It throws open the portals of the vast forever; it puts the crown of deathless destiny upon every human brow; it cries to every uncrowned king of men, “Live forever, crowned for the empire of a deathless destiny!”

Destiny | Imagination | Immortality | Men | Reason | Wisdom |

Freeman John Dyson

There are three reasons why, quite apart from scientific considerations, mankind needs to travel in space. The first reason is garbage disposal; we need to transfer industrial processes into space so that the earth may remain a green and pleasant place for our grandchildren to live in. The second reason is to escape material impoverishment; the resources of this planet are finite, and we shall not forgo forever the abundance of solar energy and minerals and living space that are spread out all around us. The third reason is our spiritual need for an open frontier. The ultimate purpose of space travel is to bring to humanity, not only scientific discoveries and an occasional spectacular show on television, but a real expansion of our spirit.

Abundance | Earth | Energy | Humanity | Mankind | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Space | Spirit | Television | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.

Destiny | Individual | Rule | Wisdom |

Brendan Francis Behan

The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.

Wisdom |

George Washington Goethals

Knowledge of our duties is the most essential part of the philosophy of life. If you escape duty you avoid action. The world demands results.

Action | Duty | Knowledge | Life | Life | Philosophy | Wisdom | World |

Harold Clarke Goddard

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in.

Destiny | Wisdom | World |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The destiny of any nation, at any given time, depends on the opinions of its young men under five-and-twenty.

Destiny | Men | Time | Wisdom |

Hugh Reginald Haweis

[Music] It reveals us to ourselves, it represents those modulations and temperamental changes which escape all verbal analysis, it utters what must else remain forever unuttered and unutterable; it feeds that deep, ineradicable instinct within us of which all art is only the reverberated echo, that craving to express, through the medium of the senses, the spiritual and eternal realties which underlie them.

Art | Eternal | Instinct | Music | Wisdom | Art |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Things as they are are changed when we demonstrate a new reality. A very small change in perception can result in a change in behavior and, cumulatively, in a very large change in cultural patterns. Our purpose and destiny are encoded within us. But they do not automatically propel us to the next act in our day, let alone the next stage in our evolution. Our Fourth Instinct allows us to see that next stage, and our free will enables us to act on it so that it can become a reality.

Behavior | Change | Day | Destiny | Evolution | Free will | Instinct | Perception | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Will | Wisdom |

David Hume

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing.

Action | Age | Applause | Censure | Life | Life | Man | Wisdom | Wise |