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

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

“True men”… are strong willed, have dignity in their demeanor, serenity in their expression. They are cool like autumn, warm like spring. Their passions arise like the four seasons, in harmony with the ten thousand creatures, and no one knows their limits.

Demeanor | Dignity | Harmony | Men | Serenity |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

The noble person tries to create harmony in the human heart by a rediscovery of human nature, and tries to promote music as a means to the perfection of human culture. When such music prevails and the people’s minds are led toward the right ideas and aspirations, we may see the appearance of a great nation. Character is the backbone of our human nature, and music is the flowing of character... The poem gives expression to our heart, the song gives expression to our voice, and the dance gives expression to our movements. these three arts take their rise from the human soul, and then are given further expressions by means of musical instruments.

Appearance | Character | Culture | Harmony | Heart | Human nature | Ideas | Means | Music | Nature | People | Perfection | Right | Soul | Poem |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

What is God-given is called nature; to follow nature is called Tao (the Way); to cultivate the way is called culture. Before joy, anger, sadness and happiness are expressed, they are called the inner self; when they are expressed to the proper degree, they are called harmony. The inner self is the correct foundation of the world, and the harmony is the illustrious Way. When a man has achieved the inner self and harmony, the heaven and earth are orderly and the myriad of things are nourished and grow thereby.

Anger | Culture | Earth | God | Harmony | Heaven | Joy | Man | Nature | Sadness | Self | World | Happiness |

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The purpose of human life is to achieve our own spiritual evolution, to get rid of negativity, to establish harmony among our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual quadrants, to learn to live in harmony within the family, community, nation, the whole world and all living things, treating all of mankind as brothers and sisters - thus making it finally possible to have peace on earth.

Earth | Evolution | Family | Harmony | Life | Life | Mankind | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | World | Learn |

François Guizot, fully François Pierre Guillaume Guizot

The universal and insuperable instinct which leads man to prayer is in harmony with this great fact: he who believes in God cannot but have recourse to Him and to pray to Him.

God | Harmony | Instinct | Man | Prayer | God |

Georg Hegel, fully Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

All finite things involve untruth; they have a notion and an existence, but their existence does not meet the requirements of the notion. God alone is the thorough harmony of notion and reality.

Existence | God | Harmony | Reality | God |

George Santayana

It is indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the occasional harmony between our nature and our environment, that we draw our conception of the divine life.

Beauty | Experience | Harmony | Life | Life | Nature | Beauty |

George Santayana

Reason in my philosophy is only a harmony among irrational impulses.

Harmony | Philosophy | Reason |

Heraclitus or Heraclitus of Ephesus NULL

Hidden harmony is mightier than what is revealed.

Harmony |

Henry Ward Beecher

True elegance becomes the more so as it approaches simplicity.

Elegance | Simplicity |

Immanuel Kant

Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world, in whose whole existence everything goes according to wish and will. It thus rests on the harmony of nature with his entire end and with the essential determining ground of his will.

Existence | Harmony | Nature | Will | World |

Joachim-Ernst Berendt

The earth is bathed in music... The drive towards 'synchonicity' and harmony is elemental and universal so it becomes comprehensible that the 'hidden' harmony within ourselves provides us with the strength to find the 'hidden' harmony in the cosmos and universe. The more 'chaotic' and 'atonal' the cluster, the more quickly the harmony develops. Disharmony is a springboard fostering the harmony within ourselves.

Earth | Harmony | Music | Strength | Universe |

John Davison Rockefeller, Jr.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual's highest fulfillment, in living in harmony with His will.

Fulfillment | God | Harmony | Individual | Will | Wise |

John Milton

To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it (for all her body is homogeneal and proportional), this is a golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes up the best harmony in a Church; not the forced and outward union of cold and neutral, and inwardly divided minds.

Body | Church | Golden Rule | Harmony | Rule | Theology | Truth | Golden Rule |

John Woolman

Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which divine love gives utterance, and some appearance of right order in their temper and conduct whose passions are regulated.

Appearance | Beauty | Conduct | Harmony | Love | Meekness | Order | Right | Sound | Temper | Beauty |

Lin Yutang

Any adequate philosophy of life must be based on the harmony of our given instincts.

Harmony | Life | Life | Philosophy |

Lewis Mumford

Life is a score that we play at sight, not merely before we have divined the intentions of the composer, but even before we have mastered our instruments: even worse, a large part of the score has been only roughly indicated, and we must improvise the music for our particular instrument, over long passages. On these terms, the whole operation seems one endless difficulty and frustration; and indeed, were it not for the fact that some of the passages have been played so often by our predecessors that, when we come to them, we seem to recall some of the score and can anticipate the natural sequence of the notes, we might often give up in sheer despair. The wonder is not that so much cacophony appears in our actual individual lives, but that there is any appearance of harmony and progression.

Appearance | Despair | Difficulty | Harmony | Individual | Life | Life | Music | Play | Wonder |

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

Purpose, resolution and harmony unify life and give it meaning by transforming it into a seamless flow experience. Whoever achieves this state will never really lack anything else. A person whose consciousness is so ordered need not fear unexpected events, or even death. Every living moment will make sense, and most of it will be enjoyable.

Consciousness | Death | Events | Experience | Fear | Harmony | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Resolution | Sense | Will |

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály

There are two opposite tendencies in evolution: changes that lead toward harmony (i.e., the ability to obtain energy through cooperation, and through the utilization of unused or wasted energy); and those that lead toward entropy (or ways of obtaining energy for one’s purposes through exploiting other organisms, thereby causing conflict and disorder.)

Ability | Cooperation | Energy | Evolution | Harmony |