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

Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway

Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now.

Past | Thought | Time | Thought |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

What we have today, in modern industrial society, is not romantic and certainly not utopianÂ…But it is in very deep trouble and holds no promise of survival. We jolly well have to have the courage to dream if we want to survive and give our children a chance of survival.

Education | Metaphysics | Present | Soul | World | Understand |

Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

We see that man entirely resembles the higher mammals, and most of all the apes, in embryonic development as well as in anatomic structure. And if we seek to understand this ontogenetic agreement in the light of the biogenetic law, we find that it proves clearly and necessarily the descent of man from a series of other mammals, and proximately from the primates.

Church | Education | Existence | Important | Influence | Need | Order | Public |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is.

Children | Present | Society | World | Society |

Erwin Rommel, fully Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel

Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success.

Giving | Present | Society | Society |

Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.

Need | Present | Science | Thinking |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

Although we are in possession of all requisite knowledge, it still requires a systematic, creative effort to bring this technology into active existence and make it generally visible and available. It is my experience that it is rather more difficult to recapture directness and simplicity than to advance in the direction of ever more sophistication and complexity.

Present | Public |

Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

Our monistic view of the world belongs, therefore, to that group of philosophical systems which from other points of view have been designated also as mechanical or as pantheistic.

Influence | Opposition |

Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.

Present |

Estonian Proverbs

Who seeks shame will find shame.

Past | Will |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Music must naturally have been criticized in proportion as it improved, especially if its progress was considerable and subitaneous: for then it differs most from the sounds to which our ear is accustomed. But if we begin to be used to it, then it pleases, and it is prejudice any longer to oppose it.

Circumstances | Order | Power | Present |

Eugene Peterson

The danger that is a threat to obedience is that we should reduce Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living.

Bible | Good | Past | Bible | Old |

Eugene Peterson

The Bible is not a script for a funeral service, but it is the record of God always bringing life where we expected to find death. Everywhere it is the story of resurrection.

People | Present |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

For de small stealing dey puts you in jail, soon or late. But for de big stealing dey puts yo' picture in de paper and yo' statue in de Hall of Fame when you croaks! If dey's one thing I learned in ten years, listenin' to de white quality on de Pullman cars, it's dat same fact. And when I gets a chance to use it -- from stowaway to Emperor in two years. Dat's goin' some!

Life | Life | Past | Peace | Unity |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

TYRONE: [Stares at him -- impressed.] Yes, there's the makings of a poet in you all right. [Then protesting uneasily] But that's morbid craziness about not being wanted and loving death. EDMUND: [Sardonically] The makings of a poet. No, I'm afraid I'm like the guy who is always panhandling for a smoke. He hasn't even got the makings. He's got only the habit. I couldn't touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That's the best I'll ever do, I mean, if I live. Well, it will be faithful realism, at least. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.

Future | Past |

Eugen Herrigel

This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.

Aims | Art | Awareness | Experience | Individual | Meaning | Means | Mind | Nothing | Power | Practice | Present | Reflection | Spirit | Work | Art | Awareness |

Eugene Peterson

If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. There must be an organic unity between past and future lived in the present.

Experience | Feelings | Heart | Little | Need | Past | People | Will | Work | Value |

Eugene Peterson

If we're trying to set education policy, we have to listen to the education experts.

Defeat | Future | Mistake | Nature | Need | Obedience | Organic | Past | Unity | Vision | Will |

Eugen Herrigel

Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! he exclaimed. The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.

Aptitude | Awareness | Cult | Danger | Ego | Existence | Life | Life | Present | Reason | Right | Spirit | Success | Time | Witness | Worth | Talent | Danger | Awareness | Teacher |