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

Esaias Tegnér

A glimpse of Breidablick, whose walls are light as e'en the silver on the cliff it shone; of dark blue steel its columns azure height and the big altar was one agate stone. It seemed as if the air upheld alone its dome, unless supporting spirits bore it, studded with stars Odin's spangled throne, a light inscrutable burned fiercely o'er it; in sky-blue mantles, sat the gold-crowned gods before it.

Lord |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

The only way that you can ever know if something is of value to you is by the way it feels as you are receiving it.

Energy | Experience |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

You cannot receive vibrationally something that you are not a vibrational match to. And so, bless those who are finding abundance. And in your blessing of them and their abundance, you will become abundant too.

Awareness | Death | Experience | Good | Joy | Life | Life | Plenty | Promise | Awareness | Value |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

No sickness would exist on this planet it your contrast hadn't carved out wellness...that you're NOT allowing.

Experience | Mind | Will |

Esther Perel

Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.

Sense | Wonder |

Etel Adnan

Does the memory of its own laws?

Change | Meaning |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

It is not your role to make others happy, it is your role to keep yourself in balance. When you pay attention to how you feel and practice self-empowering thoughts that align with who you really are, you will offer an example of thriving that will be of tremendous value to those who have the benefit of observing you.

Experience |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

Those old habits don't have to be erased, they just become replaced by a new habit that is more in vibrational harmony with who you are and what you want.

Experience | Good |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

There is no better way to earn money than to do the things that you love to do. Money can flow into your experience through endless avenues. It is not the choice of the craft that limits the money that flows - but only your attitude toward money.

People | Understanding | World |

Esther Perel

In order to be one, you must first be two.

Commitment | Love | Marriage | Relationship | Security | Story | Will | Writing |

Estonian Proverbs

Who wanders all the moors will taste all the berries.

Will |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

Thus the same statement that guarantees that God exists and that his most suitable name is He Who Is, also reveals to us the perfect simplicity of the divine essence. And indeed, God did not say: I am this or that, but simply I Am. I am what? I am ‘I Am.’ So, more than ever, the statement of Exodus seems to soar above in a kind of empty space, where the attraction of the weight of philosophy can no longer be felt. The work of reason is good, healthy, and important, for it proves that, left to itself, philosophy can establish with certitude the existence of the primary being whom everyone calls God. But a single word of the sacred text at once puts us in personal relations with him. We say his name, and by the simple fact of saying it, it teaches us the simplicity of the divine essence.

Absolute | Experience | Light | Man | Truth | Intellect |

Eudora Welty

Any room in our house at any time in the day was there to read in or to be read to.

Experience |

Eugene Peterson

The irony here is that the rise of interest in spiritual direction almost certainly comes from the proliferation of role-defined activism in our culture. We are sick and tired of being slotted into a function and then manipulated with Scripture and prayer to do what someone has decided (often with the help of some psychological testing) that we should be doing to bring glory to some religious enterprise or other. And so when people begin to show up who are interested in us just as we are - our souls - we are ready to be paid attention to in this prayerful, listening, non-manipulative, nonfunctional way. Spiritual direction.

Growth | Need | Problems | Quiet | Society | Society | Brevity | Learn |

Eugene Peterson

The pastoral vocation in America is embarrassingly banal. It is banal because it is pursued under the canons of job efficiency and career management. It is banal because it is reduced to the dimensions of a job description. It is banal because it is an idol – a call from God exchanged for an offer by the devil for work that can be measured and manipulated at the convenience of the worker. Holiness is not banal. Holiness is blazing.

Cynicism | Reason |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Language was a long time without having any other words than the names which had been given to sensible objects, such as these, tree, fruit, water, fire, and others, which they had more frequent occasion to mention.

Distinguish | Fear | Ideas | Metaphysics | Reason |

Eudora Welty

Never think you've seen the last of anything.

Experience |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

So we must try to distinguish between two questions that are often confused in this discussion. Is the existence of God a truth demonstrable by natural reason, so that it is knowable and known with certitude? Without a doubt the answer to this first question is “yes.” The second question is whether everyone can consider his natural reason infallible in its effort to demonstrate rationally the existence of God? The merciless criticism of the proofs of St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Descartes, Malebranche and many others are timely reminders of the need for modesty. Are we keener philosophers than they? That is the whole question. Modesty is not skepticism. So we should not be afraid to let our mind pursue the proof of God’s existence until we reach the greatest possible certitude, but we should keep intact our faith in the word that reveals this truth to the most simple folk as well as to the most learned. Here it is well to meditate on the very complex and nuanced passage in ST 2-2.2.4: “Is it necessary to believe what can be proved by natural reason?” The answer is in the affirmative: “We must accept by faith not only what is above reason but also what can be known by reason.”

Beginning | Body | Experience | Giving | Life | Life | Looks | Philosophy | Wisdom | Learn |

Eudora Welty

Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.

Experience | Grief | Survival | Writing |

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 |