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

François Mauriac

We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those whom we have loved. And though that love may pass, we remain nevertheless their work – a work which very likely they do not recognize and which is never exactly what they intend. No love, no friendship, will ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark upon it forever.

Destiny | Love | Will | Work |

François Mauriac

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever

Destiny |

Fyodor Dostoevsky, fully Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky or Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevski

Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature…. in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?

Death | Destiny | Giving | Happy | Inevitable | Men | Object | Order | Peace | Rest | Torture |

Deepak Chopra

Just by being ourselves we are borne toward a destiny far beyond anything we could imagine. It is enough to know that the being I nourish inside me is the same as the Being that suffuses every atom of the cosmos.

Destiny | Enough |

Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

Belief | Destiny | Enough | Man | Surrender | Wise |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

Destiny | Salvation |

I Ching, Book of Changes or Zhouyi NULL

The way of the creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the great harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

Change | Destiny | Nature |

Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.

Control your own destiny or someone else will.

Destiny |

Jacques Cousteau, formally Hacques-Yves Cousteau, known as 'le Commandant Cousteau' or 'Captain Cousteau'

The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.

Destiny | Future | Question | Survival |

Jean de La Fontaine

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

Destiny |

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

No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

Destiny |

John C. Maxwell

Affirmation from others is fickle and fleeting. If you want to make an impact during your lifetime, you have to trade the praise you could receive from others for the things of value that you can accomplish. You can’t be ‘one of the boys’ and follow your destiny at the same time.

Destiny | Praise | Receive | Value |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Man’s task is to reconcile liberty with service, reason with faith. This is the deepest wisdom man can attain. It is our destiny to serve, to surrender. We have to conquer in order to succumb; we have to acquire in order to give away; we have to triumph in order to be overwhelmed. Man has to understand in order to believe, to know in order to accept. The aspiration is to obtain; the perfection is to dispense. This is the meaning of death: the ultimate self-dedication to the divine. Death so understood will not be distorted by the craving for immortality, for this act of giving away is reciprocity on man’s part for God’s gift of life. For the pious man it is a privilege to die.

Aspiration | Death | Destiny | Giving | Liberty | Man | Meaning | Order | Perfection | Pious | Reason | Reciprocity | Will | Wisdom | Aspiration | Privilege | Understand |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The deepest wisdom man can attain is to know that his destiny is to aid, to serve. We have to conquer in order to succumb; we have to acquire in order to give away; we have to triumph in order to be overwhelmed. Man has to understand in order to believe, to know in order to accept. The aspiration is to obtain; the perfection is to dispense. This is the meaning of death: the ultimate self-dedication to the divine. Death so understood will not be distorted by the craving for immortality, for the act of giving away is reciprocity on man’s part for God’s gift of life. For the pious man it is a privilege to die.

Aspiration | Death | Destiny | Giving | Man | Meaning | Order | Perfection | Pious | Reciprocity | Will | Wisdom | Aspiration | Privilege | Understand |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Self-centeredness is the tragic misunderstanding of our destiny and existence… There is no joy for the self within the self. Joy is found in giving rather than in acquiring; in serving rather than taking.

Destiny | Giving | Joy | Self |

Joseph Marie, baron de Gérando, born Joseph Marie Degérando, also Joseph-Marie de Gérando

The seal of suffering impressed upon our destiny announces in clear characters our high calling.

Destiny | Suffering |

William O. Douglas, fully Judge William Orville Douglas

These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.

Destiny | Faith | Important | Nations | Need | People | Will | World |

Kurdish Proverbs

No matter where you go, your destiny follows you.

Destiny |

Pierre Lecomte du Noüy

The destiny of Man is not limited to his existence on earth and he must never forget that fact. He exists less by the actions performed during his life than by the wake he leaves behind him like a shooting star.

Destiny | Earth | Existence | Life | Life | Man |