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

Harold W. Percival, fully Sir Harold Waldwin Percival

Every thing existing on the physical plain is an exteriorization of a thought which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought and in accordance with that one's responsibility at the conjunction of time, condition and place. This law of thought is Destiny. Thinking is the basic factor in shaping human destiny. The machinery of the law is nature. The purpose of the universe is to make all units of matter conscious of progressively higher degrees.

Destiny | Law | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Thinking | Thought | Time | Universe | Wisdom | Thought |

Milorad Pavić

We are here because in this part of the universe time is trained to stop... Life cannot survive in time that flows, or while it flows. Life survives only when time stands still... So it could happen someplace, somehow, that eternity and time would meet at a golden intersection. At the very heart of the cross, where eternity and time would connect, time would stop to be blessed by eternity. And that, in fact, is our present. Consequently, the present is the very portion of time that has stopped. Life survives only in the present. The past, therefore, consists of moments during which time has previously stopped; the future, of moments during which time will subsequently stop. So here we are. We are here because in this part of the universe time stops and makes life possible. Perhaps we can imagine a time that is not lined up to intersect eternity, a time that would seem sterile to our way of thinking. In such a region of the universe, we would not be in a position to exist since our dominant features are those of life and death.

Death | Eternity | Future | Heart | Life | Life | Past | Position | Present | Thinking | Time | Universe | Will | Wisdom | Blessed |

J. B. Rhine, fully Joseph Banks Rhine

There is something operative in man that transcends the law of matter and, therefore, by definition, a nonphysical or spiritual law is made manifest... This new world of the mind, represented and perhaps only suggested by the psi operations already identified, may very well, through further exploration, expand into an order of significance for a spiritual universe beyond the dreams of religion’s own prophets and mystics.

Dreams | Law | Man | Mind | Order | Religion | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Isidor Isaac Rabi

What the world needs is a fusion of the sciences and the humanities. The humanities express the symbolic, poetic and prophetic qualities of the human spirit. Without them we would not be conscious of our history; we would lose our aspirations and the graces of expression that move men's hearts. The sciences express the creative urge in man to construct a universe which is comprehensible in terms of the human intellect. Without them, mankind would find itself bewildered in a world of natural forces beyond comprehension, victims of ignorance, superstition and fear.

Fear | History | Ignorance | Man | Mankind | Men | Qualities | Spirit | Superstition | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Russell Schweikart, fully Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart aka Schweikart

[The earth] is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe that you can block it out with your thumb, and you realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you - all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love.

Art | Birth | Death | Earth | History | Little | Love | Means | Music | Poetry | Universe | Wisdom | Art |

Ravi Shankar, born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, aka Pandit

Our tradition teaches us that sound is God - Nada Brahma. The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects.

God | Music | Sound | Tradition | Universe | Wisdom | God |

Richard and Greta Smolowe

We believe in a life continuum, and eternal life. Each incarnation or lifetime on earth is 'just a day in the classroom'... We believe the plane of greatest learning is the physical plane. It is up to all of us to make the most of each carnation. We believe that all there is in the universe is energy... and all energy forms, from subatomic particles to stars, are in a constant state of change and transformation... that interpreting energy frequencies on sensory bands creates the reality in which each life-form lives.

Change | Day | Earth | Energy | Eternal | Learning | Life | Life | Reality | Universe | Wisdom |

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 |

Simone Weil

To love our neighbors as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all the modes of existence of myself. Nor does it mean that we should never make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. But we should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of it.

Existence | Love | People | Relationship | Universe | Wisdom |

Daniel Webster

Truth is always congruous and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with all others.

Truth | Universe | Wisdom |

Walt Whitman, fully Walter "Walt" Whitman

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You.

Individual | Universe | Wisdom |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

I have traversed the universe from the deepest depths of the empyrean to the peristaltic movements of the atoms in the elementary cell. And on all sides stretched mysteries, marvels, and prodigies without limit, without number, and without end. I felt the unfathomable thought, of which the Universe is the symbols, live and burn within me; I touched, proved, tasted, embraced my nothingness and my immensity; I kissed the hem of the garments of god, and gave Him thanks for being Spirit and for being Life.

God | Life | Life | Spirit | Thought | Universe |

Louise Bogan

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

Beauty | Joy | Rest | Suffering | Universe | World | Beauty |

John Elof Boodin

We are material in the hands of the Genius of the universe for a still larger destiny that we cannot see in the everlasting rhythm of worlds.

Destiny | Genius | Universe |

Peter Abelard, Latin: Petrus Abaelardus or Abailard; French: Pierre Abélard

For as a picture is often more beautiful and worthy of commendation if some colors in themselves are included in it, than it would be if it were uniform and of a single color, so from an admixture of evil the universe is rendered more beautiful and worthy of commendation.

Evil | Universe |

Carol Adrienne

The first paradox of our lives is that nothing is fixed; and yet nothing is random or accidental, either. We co-create with our spiritual source. We have free will, and yet we are not in control. The second paradox is that when we set our intention for what we desire, we achieve it usually only after we have released our need to have it. This is the paradox of intention (personal desire and will) and surrender (letting God or the universe provide what is best for our highest good). You are both a finite earthly being, and an infinite soul of greater spiritual dimension. Your are both/and. You are the drop of water and the wave. You direct yourself, and you are directed.

Control | Desire | Free will | God | Good | Intention | Need | Nothing | Paradox | Soul | Surrender | Universe | Will | God |

Saint Bonaventure, born John of Fidanza Bonaventure

This universe of things is a ladder whereby we may ascend to God, since among these things are God’s footprints, some God’s image, some corporeal, some spiritual, some temporal, some eternal.

Eternal | God | Universe |