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

Benjamin R. Haydon

The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

Life | Life | Wisdom |

S. G. Goodrich, fully Samuel Griswold Goodrich, pen name Peter Praley

Moral courage is a virtue of higher cast and nobler origin than physical. It springs from a consciousness of virtue, and renders a man, in the pursuit of defense of right, superior to the fear of reproach, opposition, or contempt.

Consciousness | Contempt | Courage | Defense | Fear | Man | Opposition | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Any new formula which suddenly emerges in our consciousness has its roots in long trains of thought; it is virtually old when it first makes its appearance among the recognized growths of our intellect.

Appearance | Consciousness | Thought | Wisdom | Old |

Frederick Dan Huntington

Holiness is religious principle put into motion. It is the love of God sent forth into circulation, on the feet, and with the hands of love to men. It is faith gone to work. It is charity coined into actions, and devotion breathing benediction on human suffering, while it goes up in intercession to the Father of all piety.

Charity | Devotion | Faith | Father | God | Love | Men | Piety | Suffering | Wisdom | Work | God |

William James

Scenery seems to wear in one's consciousness better than any other element in life.

Better | Consciousness | Life | Life | Wisdom |

William James

Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness quite disregarded... They forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.

Consciousness | Reality | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all ego-hood. Out of these all-uniting depths arises the dream, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral... Death is psychologically as important as birth... Shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

Abnormal | Birth | Consciousness | Darkness | Death | Dreams | Ego | Eternal | Important | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Consciousness | Individual | Marriage | Pain | Relationship | Wisdom |

William James

The world of our consciousness consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner ‘state’ in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous - the cosmic times and spaces, for example - whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of the mind. Yet the cosmic objects, so far as the experience yields them, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point outwardly, while the inner state is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one.

Consciousness | Example | Existence | Experience | Mind | Reality | Thinking | Time | Wisdom | World | Think |

William James

I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness and of their souls’ resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.

Consciousness | Doubt | Habit | Life | Life | Little | Man | People | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Psychic reality exists in its original oneness, and awaits man's advance to a level of consciousness where he no longer believes in the one part and denies the other, but recognizes both as constituent elements of one psyche.

Consciousness | Man | Oneness | Reality | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.

Age | Consciousness | Dreams | God | Wisdom | God |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

The nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Man | Men | Nations | Rights | Wisdom |

George T. Lucas, fully George Walton Lucas, Jr.

Life cannot be explained. The only reason for life is life. There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason. One might think of life as a large organism, and we are but a small, symbiotic part of it. It is possible that on a spiritual level we are all connected in a way that continues beyond the comings and goings of various life forms. My best guess is that we share a collective spirit or life force or consciousness that encompasses and goes beyond individual life forms.

Consciousness | Force | Individual | Life | Life | Reason | Spirit | Wisdom | Think |

Maurice Nicoll

The universe is infinite response. Mentally understood, it is all possibilities. Every point of view is possible, and because it ‘exists’ it is right... The universe gives more than we give... Unless one sees the world differently, unless new ideas touch our consciousness we cannot rise to any apprehension of the second system. To all that we know naturally we must add something, and in this volume this addition is taken in terms of adding first the dimension of Time to our own lives and considering what this means for oneself.

Consciousness | Ideas | Means | Right | System | Time | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Christian Morgenstern

As Syria gave to the world through its kings and armies the principle of world-conquest, world-empire, and world-exploitation. In direct answer and refutation, Israel gave to the world, through the mouth of its inspired prophets, the principle of world-justice, world-peace, world-brotherhood.

Brotherhood | Conquest | Justice | Peace | Wisdom | World |

Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

The principle of democracy is corrupted not only when the spirit of equality is extinct, but likewise when they fall into a spirit of extreme equality, and when each citizen would fain to be upon a level with those whom he has chosen to command him. Then the people, incapable of bearing the very power they have delegated, want to manage everything themselves, to debate for the senate, to execute for the magistrate, and to decide for the judges.

Democracy | Equality | Extreme | People | Power | Spirit | Wisdom |