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

Judi Chamberlin, née Ross

Modern mental hospitals, where every method of control has been euphemistically renamed, can be frightening places. The actions of every staff member – the aide who holds a patient down, the nurse who injects the medication, the doctor who prescribes it – all have been defined as benevolent. Patients who dare to utter the unauthorized reality – that they are prisoners and that their “helpers” are jailers – only provide further evidence that they are indeed ill. Succumbing to brainwashing, accepting reality as defined by one’s captors, differs from a psychiatric “cure” only because in the latter case the accepted reality is the prevailing one. Holding a minority position makes a person a potential subject for psychiatric brainwashing.

Control | Evidence | Method | Position | Reality |

Christian Century Editorial NULL

The ancient theory of the just war breaks down when victory is impossible, when the weapons are so undiscriminating as to destroy both sides.

Destroy | War | Weapons |

Gregg Braden

The possibilities of our future are actually determined by collective choices in the present. The evidence simply states that the choice of many people, focused in a specific manner, has a direct and measurable effect on our quality of life. Quantum physics suggests that by redirecting our focus – where we place our attention – we bring a new course of events into focus while at the same time releasing an existing course of events that may no longer serve us.

Attention | Choice | Events | Evidence | Focus | Future | Life | Life | People | Present | Time |

Richard Downey

Agnosticism denies to the human mind a power of attaining knowledge which it does possess... Agnosticism, as such, is a theory about knowledge and not about religion.

Knowledge | Mind | Power | Religion |

L. Francis Edmunds

Materialism assumes a line of `continuity’ running through the whole scheme of nature, despite its obvious gaps; on the contrary, he underlines the significance of `discontinuity’ as positive evidence of the intervention of a higher source of influence which escapes man’s limited `scale of observation.’ A giant or a microbe would, with similar intelligence, observe the same phenomenon differently; they might be guided by their scales of observation to different, or at least, to modified conclusions. There is no scientific truth in an absolute sense. The phrase Ad veritatem per scientiam is an absurdity.

Absolute | Evidence | Influence | Intelligence | Man | Materialism | Nature | Observation | Sense | Truth |

Albert E Cliffe

Your subconscious mind produces in your daily life evidence of the thoughts you send back to it. The constant repetition of fear, anxiety and worry thoughts will bring upon you the same thing multiplied many times over, but the constant practice of positive thinking, making affirmations hour by hour that God is now healing your fears and worries, will bring magnificent results... You have the ability for successful living. You have the tools. The power you use is faith and the tools are your thoughts and ideas.

Ability | Anxiety | Anxiety | Evidence | Faith | Fear | God | Ideas | Life | Life | Mind | Power | Practice | Thinking | Will | Worry | God |

Mourning Dove or Christal Quintasket, aka Mourning Dove Salish and Christine Quintasket NULL

Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.

Disease | Earth | Existence | Mission | Purpose | Purpose |

Owen Flanagan

Three claims: (1) Consciousness exists. There exist conscious mental states, events, and processes that have the property of being conscious. (2) Consciousness has depth, hidden structure, hidden and possibly multiple functions, and hidden natural and cultural history. Conscious mental states supervene on brain states. (3) Conscious mental states, processes, events – possibly conscious supervisory faculties, if there are any – are heterogeneous in phenomenal world. A theory of consciousness will in the end be part of a unified theory of the mind.

Consciousness | Events | History | Mind | Property | Will | World |

Owen Flanagan

Moral ambiguity creates mental cramps of various sorts, which lead to reflection, discussion, and argument… Morality resists theoretical unification under either a set of special-purpose rules or single general-purpose rule or principle, such as the categorical imperative or the principle of unity. If this is right, and if it is right because the ends of moral life are plural and heterogeneous in kind and because our practices of moral education rightly reflect this, then we have some greater purchase on why the project of finding a single theoretically satisfying moral theory has failed.

Ambiguity | Argument | Discussion | Education | Ends | Life | Life | Morality | Purpose | Purpose | Reflection | Right | Rule | Unity | Theoretical |

Sidney Greenberg

Every day we shall see about us evidence of human pettiness, greed, self-centeredness. But if we observe carefully we also see human nobility, generosity, self-surrender and genuine religious conviction and action. The cynic remembers only man’s faults – that is why he remains a cynic. The wise man remembers his brother’s virtues. Which shall we choose to remember?

Action | Cynic | Day | Evidence | Generosity | Greed | Man | Nobility | Self | Surrender | Wise |

Stephen Hawking

If we do discover a complete [unified] theory [of the universe], it should be in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God.

Discussion | God | Mind | People | Question | Reason | Time | Universe |

James Arthur Hadfield

The doctrine that the will alone is the way to power is a most woe-begone theory for the relief to the morally sick.

Doctrine | Power | Will | Woe |

Allan J Hamilton

Could the mind have an existence entirely independent of the central nervous system?... Scientific evidence that not only was her brain not working, it specifically demonstrated the absence of all cortical activity when these conversations actually took place. So where could these brand-new memories have been created?... Imagine the implications of the notion that quanta of conscious energy could exist independently in the Universe, able to enter from anywhere, at any time.

Absence | Energy | Evidence | Existence | Mind | System | Time | Universe |

Stephen Hawking

Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories – the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe (that is the structure on scales from only a few miles to as large as a million million million million miles – the size of the observable universe). Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other – they cannot both be correct.

Force | Phenomena | Size | Theories | Universe |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Experience | Freedom | Will |

Ron Leifer, fully Ronald Leifer

Refusal to cooperate with the [hospital] psychiatrist, rather than being within his rights under the Fifth Amendment, may be construed as evidence of a “paranoid illness” for which [the patient] requires further psychiatric hospitalization.

Evidence | Rights |

Stuart Kauffman, fully Stuart Alan Kauffman

If we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all.

Myth | Order | Organization | Self | Will | Understand |