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

Paulo Coelho

Life attracts life… Life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it… Life does not play with marked cards. Winning or losing is part of it… Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once… Life is a constant risk, and anyone who forgets this will be unprepared for the challenges that fate may have in store… Life is a game that is spinning faster to dizziness; life is a skydiving game; it gives us the opportunity, we flying and soaring up again; life is a hiking trip; it wants to climb to the pinnacle of your best and feeling angry, upset when you do not control it… Life is an act of faith… Life is falling down 7 times and getting up 8… Life is like a garden, you reap what you sow… Life is like cooking: before choosing what you love, try everything… Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by… Life is one long training session, in preparation for what will come. Life and death lose their meaning, there are only challenges to be met with joy and overcome with tranquility… Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly… Life is too short to waste time complaining… Life is the moment we're living right now… Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other… Life without cause is a life without effect.

Action | Cause | Control | Death | Fate | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Nothing | People | Play | Reason | Right | Time | Training | Wants | Waste | Will | Fate | Forgive | Winning |

Paulo Coelho

Do not get used to it because it is easy to become a habit, it is a powerful drug. It is in the everyday life of us, in the suffering that we try to cover it, the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the breakup of their dreams. The pain was terrible when it displays its true face, but it temptation, appealing as it is disguised as a sacrifice or self-denial or cowardice. However, the more denial, as we found a way to exist with it, with the courtship of it and turn it into a part of our lives. I do not believe it. No one wants to suffer at all. If I think I could live without pain, that would be a big step, but do not imagine that others will understand me. Yes, the truth is that no one wants to suffer, even those who are still looking for pain and sacrifice there, but they feel they are reasonable, clearly there, and they are receiving the respect of human so, husbands, neighbors, and even God. Now we do not think about it anymore; everything you need to know is how to control this world spinning, not a journey in search of pleasure, but forget their sacrifice for all, that's important. There must a soldier participating in war is to kill the enemy or not? No, he left to sacrifice for the fatherland. Having a wife wants her husband to find himself not happy how? No, she wants her husband saw how sincere she endured as to how to make him happy. There must be a husband to do because they think he will find the fully meet individual needs in the workplace? No, he's brought the sweat and tears of the fine in exchange for peace to the family. And so life there are boys abandon their dreams to please their parents, parents give their lives for their children; pain and suffering are used to justify a bring only joy: love.

Boys | Control | Dreams | Enemy | Happy | Husband | Individual | Journey | Justify | Kill | Life | Life | Love | Need | Pain | Parents | Peace | Respect | Sacrifice | Search | Self-denial | Suffering | Tears | Truth | Wants | War | Wife | Will | World | Respect | Think | Understand |

Paulo Coelho

God has a prepared path for us to follow. We just have to read the omens he has left for us… God hides the fires of hell within paradise… God is always close to us, whether we pray to him or not… God is one, and is called a thousand name;, but should choose a name to address him… God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us to select a name for Him… God only allows us to see such things when he wants something to change… God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered… God always offers us a second chance in life… Anyone who knows God cannot describe Him. Anyone who can describe God does not know Him.

Chance | Future | God | Hell | Wants | God |

Paulo Coelho

Everything said to myself that I was about to have a wrong decision, but to suffer from mistakes is just part of life. The world wants something from you? Do not want to risk it again and returned to where they have gone by I do not have the courage to say yes to it? I made a mistake when his first eleven years old, when her son I can ask to see him not borrow a pencil, from then on, I realized that sometimes you do not have a second chance and it is better to accept the gift that this world gift . Of course it's risky, but risk is greater risk that their bus was sitting on the forty-eight hours to get here might have an accident? If I must be honest with someone or something, you have to do, and first, to be honest with yourself already. If you are looking for a true love, then you must first remove the trivial love from people you have. What little experience I have taught her is that no one owns anything at all, that everything is an illusion-and illusion that the physical affects as well as the soul of all things so. Anyone who has lost something that they think it is theirs forever (as it has frequently happened to me last time), finally realizes that nothing really belongs to them all. And if nothing belongs to me at all, then it is useless to waste time to take care of things is not his; best to live as if today is the first (or also may be the last day) of life.

Better | Care | Chance | Courage | Experience | Illusion | Little | Love | Mistake | Nothing | People | Risk | Soul | Time | Wants | Waste | World | Wrong | Think |

Peggy Noonan, born Margaret Ellen Noonan

Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.

Wants |

Paulo Coelho

I think that if we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange… I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings… I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we’re alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.

Hope | Life | Life | Love | Man | Reason | Wants | Think |

Paulo Coelho

No one should let themselves get used to anything… No one wants their life thrown into chaos at all. That's why many people holding back the threat level under control, and that's the way they are able to prop up a house or structure has rotted. They are the architects of innovation. Others think the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought; they hope to find in the passion that the method solves all their problems. They force people to take responsibility for their happiness, and blame those people because they were not happy. They are in an excited state because of the magic has happened or depressed because things just do not expect the destruction of all. Alkali keep the passion, or surrender it blindly-way, less destructive The most extreme? I do not know.

Blame | Force | Hope | Life | Life | Magic | Method | Passion | People | Responsibility | Surrender | Wants | Think |

Paulo Coelho

I am always nearby, when someone wants to realize their destiny… I am who I was and who I will be… I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life… I could have. What does this phrase mean? At any given moment in our lives, there are certain things that could have happened but, didn't. The magic moments go unrecognized, and then suddenly, the hand of destiny changes everything… I believe in signs... what we need to learn is always there before us, we just have to look around us with respect and attention to discover where God is leading us and which step we should take. When we are on the right path, we follow the signs, and if we occasionally stumble, the Divine comes to our aid, preventing us from making mistakes.

Attention | Destiny | God | Magic | Need | Question | Respect | Right | Search | Wants | Will | World | Respect | God | Learn | Victim |

Persian Proverbs

He who wants the rose must respect the thorn.

Respect | Wants | Respect |

Periander, aka Periander The Great NULL

Who wants to govern quiet, he shouldn’t protect himself with spears, but with universal love.

Wants | Govern |

Percy Bysshe Shelley

When you understand the degree of attention which the requisitions of your physical nature demand, you will perceive how little labour suffices for their satisfaction. Your Heavenly Father knoweth you have need of these things. The universal Harmony, or Reason, which makes your passive frame of thought its dwelling, in proportion to the purity and majesty of its nature will instruct you, if ye are willing to attain that exalted condition, in what manner to possess all the objects necessary for your material subsistence. All men are to become thus pure and happy. All men are called to participate in the community of Nature's gifts. The man who has fewest bodily wants approaches nearest to the Divine Nature.

Attention | Father | Little | Man | Men | Nature | Need | Purity | Thought | Wants | Will | Thought | Understand |

Percy W. Bridgman, fully Percy Williams Bridgman

It is profitable nevertheless to permit ourselves to talk about 'meaningless' terms in the narrow sense if the preconditions to which all profitable operations are subject are so intuitive and so universally accepted as to form an almost unconscious part of the background of the public using the term. Physicists of the present day do constitute a homogenous public of this character; it is in the air that certain sorts of operation are valueless for achieving certain sorts of result. If one wants to know how many planets there are one counts them but does not ask a philosopher what is the perfect number.

Day | Present | Public | Sense | Wants |

Philip Bennett Power

The daily circumstances of life will afford us opportunities enough of glorifying God in trust, without our waiting for any extraordinary calls upon faith, our faith. Let us remember that the extraordinary circumstances of life are but few; that much of life may slip past without their occurrence; and that if we be not faithful and trusting in that which is little, we are not likely to be so in that which is great... Let our trust be reared in the humble nursery of our own daily experience, with its ever recurring little wants and trials, and sorrows; and then, when need be, it will come forth, to do such great things as are required of it.

Circumstances | Enough | God | Life | Life | Little | Need | Past | Trust | Waiting | Wants | Will | God |

Pietro Metastasio, aka Metastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi

Of all faults the greatest is the excess of impious terror, dishonoring divine grace. He who despairs wants love, wants faith; for faith, hope, and love are three torches which blend their light together, nor does the one shine without the other.

Excess | Light | Love | Wants |

Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin

Where the family practice of Bible study and prayer is daily observed, there is only one divorce in every 1,015 marriages.

Bible | Family | Practice | Prayer | Study | Bible |

Pirke Avot, "Verses of the Fathers" or "Ethics of the Fathers" NULL

There are four temperaments among men: Easy to provoke and easy to appease--his loss is canceled by his gain. Hard to provoke and hard to appease--his gain is canceled by his loss. Hard to provoke and easy to appease--he is a saintly man. Easy to provoke and hard to appease--he is a wicked man. Four characteristics are found among students: Quick to learn and quick to forget, his gain is canceled by his loss. Slow to learn and slow to forget, his loss is canceled by his gain. Quick to learn and slow to forget, his is a happy lot. Slow to learn and quick to forget, his is an unhappy lot. There are four types of charity-givers: He who wants to give but does not wish that others should give -- he begrudges what belongs to others. He who wants that others should give but not that he should give--he begrudges what belongs to himself. He who wants to give and also that others should give--he is a saintly man. He who does not want to give himself and does not wish that others should give--he is a wicked man. There are four types among those who attend the house of study: He who goes and does not practice (study)--he has the reward of his going. He who practices (studies) but does not go--he has the reward of his practicing (studying). He who goes and also practices (studies)--he is a saintly man. He who neither goes nor practices (studies)--he is a wicked man. There are four types among those who sit in the presence of the sages: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, and the sieve. The sponge, who soaks up everything. The funnel, who takes in at this end and lets out at the other. The strainer, who lets out the wine and retains the dregs. The sieve, who removes the coarse meal and collects the fine flour.

Happy | Practice | Reward | Wants | Loss | Learn |

Inayat Khan, aka Hazrat Inayat Khan, fully Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

With the maturity of his soul, a man desires to probe the depths of life, he desires to discover the power latent within him, he longs to know the sources and goal of his life, he yearns to understand the aim and meaning of his life, he wishes to understand the inner significance of things, and he wants to uncover all that is covered by name and form. He seeks insight into cause and effect, he wants to touch the mystery of time and space, and he wishes to find the missing link between God and man — where man ends, where God begins.

Cause | God | Insight | Man | Meaning | Mystery | Power | Time | Wants | Wishes | God | Understand |

Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

The waters deluge man with rain, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good committed to her care, and though she produces the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, and when life is over she piously covers his remains in her bosom.

Good | Life | Life | Man | Wants |

Polish Proverbs

He is rich enough that wants nothing.

Enough | Wants |