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

Morris Lichtenstein

The Divine Mind communicates with the human mind through the imagination. A prayer, therefore, should be offered in the form of a mental image. Man must visualize the thing he desires, he must use his imaginative powers to form his petition in terms clearly outlined in his own mind. The profound concentration of attention and thought which this form of prayer requires fills also the heart with deep earnestness and devotion. Man must pray whole-heartedly as well as wholemindedly; he must believe in his heart that his well-being depends completely upon his prayer.

Attention | Character | Devotion | Earnestness | Heart | Imagination | Man | Mind | Prayer | Thought | Thought |

Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

You will be able to overcome desires without excessive difficulty when you become aware of their illusory nature. The pleasure of eating, for example, is really of very short duration. You feel the pleasure for only the short amount of time the food is in your mouth. As soon as you have swallowed the food, it is already forgotten... All physical pleasures are similar. Give the matter sufficient thought and you will realize that even the illusory good lasts only a short time. On the other hand, the negative consequences of physical pleasures can be severe and long lasting. A thinking person will definitely not want to place himself in a situation fraught with dangers for momentary pleasures. By habitually thinking about this truth, one will gradually be able to free himself from the prison of foolishly pursuing physical pleasures.

Character | Consequences | Difficulty | Example | Good | Nature | Pleasure | Prison | Thinking | Thought | Time | Truth | Will | Thought |

Alexander Maclaren

Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?

Character | Eternity | Hunger | Need | Possessions | Thought | Time | Trifles | Will | Thought |

Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes

The thought of eternity consoles for the shortness of life.

Character | Eternity | Life | Life | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |

Madame de Motteville, Françoise Bertaut de Motteville

If only man could be induced to laugh more they might hate less, and find more serenity here on earth. If they cannot worship together, or accept the same laws, or tolerate the wonderful diversity of thought and behavior and physique with which they have been blessed, at least they can laugh together.

Behavior | Character | Diversity | Earth | Hate | Man | Serenity | Thought | Worship | Thought |

George William McDonald

Instead of a gem or a flower, cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend.

Character | Friend | Heart | Thought | Thought |

Arundell Charles St. John-Mildmay

Every duty brings its peculiar delight, every denial its appropriate compensation, every thought its recompense, every love its elysium, every cross its crown; pay goes with performance as effect with cause. Meanness overreaches itself; vice vitiates whoever indulges it; the wicked wrong their own souls; generosity greatens; virtue exalts; charity transfigures; and holiness is the essence of angelhood. God does not require us to live on credit; he pays us what we earn as we earn it, good or evil, heaven or hell, according to our choice.

Cause | Character | Charity | Choice | Compensation | Credit | Duty | Evil | Generosity | God | Good | Heaven | Hell | Love | Meanness | Recompense | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Wrong | God | Thought | Vice |

Anna Maria Porter

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures.

Character | Habit | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness | Thought |

John Jason Owen

He that hath slight thought of sin never had great thoughts of God.

Character | God | Sin | Thought | Thought |

Alexander Pope

What thin partitions sense from thought divide.

Character | Sense | Thought | Thought |

Francis Quarles

The fountain of beauty is the heart, and every generous thought illustrates the walls of your chamber. If virtue accompanies beauty it is the heart's paradise; if vice be associate with it, it is the soul's purgatory. It is the wise man's bonfire, and the fools furnace.

Beauty | Character | Heart | Man | Paradise | Soul | Thought | Virtue | Virtue | Wise | Beauty | Thought | Vice |

Andrew W Robertson

Too often we fix our minds almost entirely upon what we are going to get and give no thought at all as to what we are going to give in return.

Character | Thought | Thought |

John Charles Salak

Failures are divided into two classes - those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

Character | Thought | Thought |

Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL

If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.

Character | Mind | Thought | Will | Work | Thought |