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

Ta-chu Hui-Hai

When you stop thinking that things have a past or future, and that they come or go, then in the whole universe there won't be a single atom that is not your own treasure. All you have to do is look into your own mind; then the marvelous reality will manifest itself at all times. Don't search for the truth with your intellect. Don't search at all. The nature of the mind is intrinsically pure.

Future | Mind | Nature | Past | Reality | Search | Thinking | Truth | Universe | Will | Wisdom |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The aging man of the middle twentieth century lives, not in the public world of atomic physics and conflicting ideologies, of welfare states and supersonic speed, but in his strictly private universe of physical weakness and mental decay.

Man | Public | Universe | Weakness | Wisdom | World |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

They change their sky not their mind who cross the sea. A busy idleness possesses us: we seek a happy life, with ships and carriages: the object of our search is present with us.

Change | Happy | Idleness | Life | Life | Mind | Object | Present | Search | Wisdom |

Margaret Jenkins

Every pupil you have carries in his mind or heart or conscience a bit of you. Your influence, your example, your ideas and values keep marching on - how far into the future and into what realms of our spacious universe you will never know.

Conscience | Example | Future | Heart | Ideas | Influence | Mind | Universe | Will | Wisdom |

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

We live in a hemisphere whose own revolution has given birth to the most powerful force of the modern age - the search for the freedom and self-fulfillment of man.

Age | Birth | Force | Freedom | Fulfillment | Man | Revolution | Search | Self | Wisdom |

R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

When the Copernican Revolution superseded the ancient Polemic world view, the earth took its rightful place as one planet among many. Man was no longer the center of the universe and though his self-image was deflated, he grew in maturity. In the same way, we must take our rightful place in nature - not as its self-centered and profligate "master" with the divine right of kings to exploit and despoil, but as one species living in harmony with the whole.

Earth | Exploit | Harmony | Man | Nature | Revolution | Right | Self | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Walter Savage Landor

Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd.

Absurd | Universe | Wisdom |

D. H. Lawrence, fully David Herbert "D.H." Lawrence

The more we search for an alibi, the more we discover that unhappiness on earth is man-made.

Earth | Man | Search | Unhappiness | Wisdom |

Maurice Maeterlinck, fully Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck

To look fearlessly upon life; to accept the laws of nature, not with meek resignation, but as her sons, who dare to search and question; to have peace and confidence within our souls - these are the beliefs that make for happiness.

Confidence | Life | Life | Nature | Peace | Question | Resignation | Search | Wisdom |

James Russell Lowell

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all are agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better-looking than he had imagined.

Better | Looks | Reason | Search | Truth | Wisdom |

Jacques Maritain

The search for causes is indeed the business of philosophers.

Business | Search | Wisdom | Business |

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 |

Yehudi Menuhin, fully Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin

The magic of listening brings us closer to the central core of the universe. To begin to comprehend... life it is not sufficient to touch and see.

Life | Life | Listening | Magic | Universe | Wisdom |

Maurice Nicoll

To live unto eternity is to live unto aeon, unto unity, unto wholeness, completeness, unto the integration of all the life. And this is now. The enemy to now is the illusion of passing-time... When we reach the now the world is turned the other way round. We are at the centre of things. The responsibility is ours. Had we now in our lives we would cease to blame.... Universe evolves out of one’s own mind... because the WORLD is a series of possible mental transformations

Blame | Enemy | Eternity | Illusion | Integration | Life | Life | Mind | Responsibility | Time | Unity | Universe | Wholeness | Wisdom | World |

Maurice Nicoll

What is the standpoint of materialism?... We look outwards (via the senses) for the explanation and cause of everything. We start from phenomena as absolute truth... Materialism gives sense and physical matter priority over mind or idea... The customary standpoint of scientific materialism is that primary matter is dead - and the universe is dead and nature is dead - and a dead nature can, of course, aim at nothing. It cannot be teleological.

Absolute | Cause | Materialism | Mind | Nature | Nothing | Phenomena | Sense | Truth | Universe | Wisdom |