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

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

Every product of technology takes up space in the mind, and requires some investment of attention that could have been used for some other purpose.

Attention | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Space | Technology |

Matthew Arnold

The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialized itself in the fact, in the supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry... More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.

Creed | Dogma | Future | Illusion | Life | Life | Mankind | Philosophy | Poetry | Race | Religion | Rest | Science | Time | Tradition | Will | World |

Max Lerner, fully Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner, aka Mikhail Lerner

A world technology means either a world government or world suicide.

Government | Means | Suicide | Technology | World | Government |

Noam Chomsky, fully Avram Noam Chomsky

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Action | Choice | Decision | Reason | Science | Will |

Neil Armstrong, fully Neil Alden Armstrong

Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny. Mystery, however, is a very necessary ingredient in our lives. Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis for man’s desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generations? Science has not mastered prophesy. We predict too much for next year yet far too little for the next ten. Responding to challenge is one of democracy’s great strengths. Our successes in space lead us to hope that this strength can be used in the next decade in the solution of many of our planet’s problems.

Challenge | Democracy | Desire | Destiny | Hope | Little | Man | Mystery | Order | Problems | Science | Space | Strength | Universe | Will | Wonder | Understand |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

The metaphysician looks at truth from within to without. That is why they clash. But realized souls who understand science as well as metaphysics find no difference at all. They see the parallelism between science and truth because they see the whole picture.

Looks | Metaphysics | Science | Truth | Understand |

Apela Colorado, aka Pamela Colorado

The data from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of nature; instead, the data tell us ways and means of accommodating nature... The purpose of indigenous science is to maintain balance... Indigenous science is holistic, drawing on all senses including the spiritual and psychic realm. Indigenous science collapses time ands space, with the result that our fields of participation and inquiry extend into and overlap with past and present.

Balance | Control | Inquiry | Means | Nature | Past | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Science | Space | Time |

Plato NULL

Wisdom alone is a science of other sciences and of itself.

Science | Wisdom |

Percy Bysshe Shelley

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, which is the measure of the universe; and science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind poured itself forth in all-prophetic song; and music lifted up the listening spirit until it walked, except from mortal care, Godlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound.

Care | Earth | Heaven | Listening | Man | Mind | Mortal | Music | Science | Sound | Speech | Spirit | Thought | Universe |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is the outmost action of the inward life.

Action | Life | Life | Prudence | Prudence | Science | Virtue | Virtue |

Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

Error | Religion | Science | Superstition |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

God | Religion | Science | Suicide | God | Afraid |

Richard Barnet, fully Richard Jackson Barnet

Once demystified, the dismal science (of economics) is nothing less than the study of power.

Economics | Nothing | Power | Science | Study |

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is not prayer also a study of truth – a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall at the same time kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into the creation.

God | Learning | Light | Man | Object | Prayer | Science | Soul | Study | Thought | Time | Truth | Will | God |

Richard Dawkins

Science offers the best answers to the meaning of life. Science offers you the privilege before you die of understanding why you were ever born in the first place.

Life | Life | Meaning | Science | Understanding | Privilege |