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

Marija Gimbutas

The meaning of life is discovered through creativity and the knowledge that we are interconnected with the entire natural world. When we deny this, meaning is shattered.

Character | Creativity | Knowledge | Life | Life | Meaning | World |

Victor Weisskopf, fully Victor "Viki" Frederick Weisskopf

Most forms of human creativity have one aspect n common: the attempt to give some sense to the various impressions, emotions, experiences, and actions that fill our lives, and thereby to give some meaning and value to our existence... The crisis of our time in the Western world is that the search for meaning has become meaningless for many of us.

Character | Creativity | Emotions | Existence | Meaning | Search | Sense | Time | World | Crisis | Value |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

The answer to the accumulating casualties of the welfare state’s “war” on poverty is the home-grown, grass-roots, all-volunteer army of ordinary people armed with food, books, skills and a determination to make a difference. The entrepreneurial creativity that catapulted this nation to a position of global leadership can now be harnessed to do for community what it did for productivity. When we provide imaginative, entrepreneurial alternatives to the welfare state, we won’t need to confront it. It will simply wither away. And the rewards of this work are a bounty of spiritual renewal: an abundance of love, meaning and connectedness.

Abundance | Books | Creativity | Determination | Global | Love | Meaning | Need | People | Position | Poverty | War | Will | Wisdom | Work | Leadership |

Starhawk, born Miriam Simos NULL

Our purpose is to live in harmony with those cycles [birth, growth, death and regeneration] to develop our peculiar organs of consciousness and creativity to add to the beauty, love, humor, diversity and general interest of the world.

Beauty | Birth | Consciousness | Creativity | Death | Diversity | Growth | Harmony | Humor | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | World |

David Spangler

Ultimately, our purpose is to be so alive, compassionate and creative in our own lives that the whole universe quivers with excitement and enthusiasm and brings forth a new spirit, a new possibility, in our midst. Our purpose is to be both the womb and the midwife for the birthing into our world of a holy spirit filled with new potentials for life and creativity. We exist in order to quicken the creativity and spirit of our world so that new worlds, new wonders, new blessings may emerge... To truly appreciate the meaning of life, we must be prepared to let the meanings we have known stand in the presence of new insights and be transformed. We have no final answers, only the questions that lead to further discoveries, creativity and emergence. We are here that life may discover, know and express itself more abundantly for the blessing and fulfillment of all creation - past, present and potential.

Blessings | Creativity | Enthusiasm | Excitement | Fulfillment | Life | Life | Meaning | Order | Past | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Ross A. Webber

Most important, novelty and creativity are unrecognizable unless they emerge from order.

Creativity | Important | Novelty | Order | Wisdom | Novelty |

A. J. Ayer, Alfred Jules Ayer

Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.

Creativity | Originality | Scholar | Soul |

Tom Gregory

Our society has progressed largely because of our creativity and inquisitiveness – and because we’re competitive. We’re driven by the desire to develop products and services which are more ingenious than what others have put forth. Competition is inherently good, but when it is tainted with excess greed or negative motives, there can be harmful results. How we compete is very important to our Souls.

Competition | Creativity | Desire | Excess | Good | Greed | Important | Inquisitiveness | Motives | Society | Society |

Paula Ripple, fully Paula Ripple Comin

Neither power nor wealth, neither education nor ability, neither gifts of creativity nor stores of human energy can insure against the reality that suffering will be our companion at some time during our journey. It is a presence as inseparable from the human condition as food and oxygen are from human life. It is part of our legacy.

Ability | Creativity | Education | Energy | Journey | Life | Life | Power | Reality | Suffering | Time | Wealth | Will |

Henry Nelson Wieman

To say that God exceeds the powers of our comprehension is not to say that we do not know God. We know empirically the actual, present, dynamic working of creativity in our midst, progressively creating, saving and transforming the personality of man when required conditions are present. Therefore we know God and know him more intimately than any other, because he is so deeply involved in our existence. But to know God thus does not mean that we can construct in our imagination a picture of him or comprehend the depth and fullness of his being.

Creativity | Dynamic | Existence | God | Imagination | Man | Personality | Present | God |

Nnamdi Azikiwe, fully Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, aka "The Zik of Africa"

Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.

Creativity | Originality | Scholar | Soul |

Frank Barron

The use of creativity as an instrument for personal and social gain is by no means the whole story. In its deeper philosophical implications, creativity is a quest for meaning. It is an attempt to penetrate the mystery of the self, and perhaps the even greater mystery of Being.

Creativity | Meaning | Means | Mystery | Self | Story |

Irving Singer

Our species is unique in its great creativity with respect to meaningfulness. Our systems of meaning vary tremendously from moment to moment, from one individual to another, and from society to society.

Creativity | Individual | Meaning | Respect | Society | Unique | Society | Respect |

Arthur Koestler

True creativity often starts where language ends.

Creativity | Ends | Language |

Carl Sagan

It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.

Creativity | Science | Skepticism |