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

Egyptian Proverbs

Protect the flame of your candle and it will light more.

Spirit |

Albert Einstein

Nevertheless we all feel that it is indeed very reasonable and important to ask ourselves how we should try to conduct our lives. The answer is, in my opinion: satisfaction of the desires and needs of all, as far as this can be achieved, and achievement of harmony and beauty in the human relationships. This presupposes a good deal of conscious thought and of self-education. It is undeniable that the enlightened Greeks and the old Oriental sages had achieved a higher level in this all-important field than what is alive in our schools and universities.

Admiration | Little | Morality | Spirit |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Square cattle moved in the fields like saints, with a mindless certainty. Single trees, on a rath, at the turn of the road, drew up light at their roots. Only the massed trees – spread like a rug to dull some keenness, break some contact between self and senses perilous to the routine of living – only the trees of the demesne were dark, exhaling darkness. Down among them, dusk would stream up the paths ahead, lie stagnant over the lawns, would mount in the tank of garden, heightening the walls, dulling the borders like a rain of ashes. Dusk would lie where one looked as though it were in one’s eyes, as though the fountain of darkness were in one’s own perception. Seen from above, the house in its pit of trees seemed a very reservoir of obscurity; from the doors one must come out stained with it. And the kitchen smoke, lying over the vague trees doubtfully, seemed to be the very fume of living.

Culture | Spirit |

Albert Einstein

However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research.

Science | Spirit | Universe |

William Shakespeare

Some sins do bear their privilege on earth, And so doth yours; your fault was not your folly.

Birth | Power | Spirit |

Elizabeth Gilbert

I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.

Peace | Right | Spirit | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.

Eternal | Evolution | God | History | Humanity | Ideas | Individual | Longing | Means | Need | Nothing | Order | Peace | Providence | Right | Sacred | Search | Spirit | Story | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wonder | God | Think | Thought |

Elizabeth Lesser

What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

Beginning | Body | Earth | Heart | Mind | Pain | Solitude | Spirit | Spirituality | Time |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.

History | Spirit | Strength | Old |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

Man, before he is being regenerated, does not even know that any internal man exists, much less is he acquainted with its nature and quality.

Body | Lord | Spirit |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

There is granted to everyone after death the opportunity of amending his life, if it is at all possible.

Earnestness | Mind | Power | Spirit | Work |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

Such as the love is, such is the wisdom, consequently such is the man.

Abundance | Body | Conversation | Eternal | Experience | Life | Life | Means | Meditation | Money | Need | People | Reading | Spirit | Time | World | Think | Understand |

Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

Withdrawal from evil is effected by the Lord in a thousand most secret ways.

Body | Death | Individual | Meaning | Means | Nature | People | Spirit | Thought | World | Thought |

Dorothy Parker

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

Dread | Dreams | Hate | Love | Peace | Soul | Spirit | Thought | World | Thought |

Emily Dickinson, fully Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you’re lagging, I may remember him!

Music | Spirit | Time |

Emma Goldman

How long would authority . . . exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

Spirit |

Emma Goldman

I know how your visit and my strange behavior must have affected you, he wrote. The sight of your face after all these years completely unnerved me. I could not think, I could not speak. It was as if all my dreams of freedom, the whole world of the living, were concentrated in the shiny little trinket that was dangling from your watch-chain. I couldn't take my eyes off it, I couldn't keep my hand from playing with it. It absorbed my whole being. And all the time I felt how nervous you were at my silence, and I couldn't utter a word.

Care | Spirit | Tomorrow |

Emma Goldman

No sacrifice is lost for a great ideal!

Ignorance | Inhumanity | Man | Means | Protest | Revolution | Spirit | System | Wrong |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

Instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.

Earth | Heaven | Spirit |

Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell

I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Earth | Soul | Spirit |