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

John Elof Boodin

God is felt in us as a divine restlessness which spurs us on so long as we truly live. When it deserts us, we are really dead. Be productive and be productive for the common good – that is the eternal commandment.

Eternal | God | Good | Restlessness |

Thomas Edison, fully Thomas Alva Edison

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress.

Discontent | Failure | Man | Necessity | Progress | Restlessness | Will |

Edmund Burke

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Appearance | Appetite | Curiosity | Object | Restlessness |

Henry Thomas Buckle

Men are made uneasy; they flinch; they cannot bear the sudden light; a general restlessness supervenes; the face of society is disturbed, or perhaps convulsed; old interests and old beliefs have been destroyed before new ones have been created. These symptoms are the precursors of revolution; they have preceded all the great changes through which the world has passed.

Restlessness | Society | World | Society | Old |

Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn

Six Declines of Modern Youth: Decline of Fitness due to modern methods of locomotion [moving about];Decline of Initiative and Enterprise due to the widespread disease of spectatoritis; Decline of Memory and Imagination due to the confused restlessness of modern life; Decline of Skill and Care due to the weakened tradition of craftsmanship; Decline of Self-discipline due to the ever-present availability of stimulants and tranquilizers; And worst of all: Decline of Compassion due to the unseemly haste with which modern life is conducted or as William Temple called "spiritual death".

Care | Compassion | Disease | Haste | Imagination | Initiative | Life | Life | Memory | Restlessness | Skill | Tradition |

Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

Success or failure is the just result of what you have done in the past, plus what you do now... You should transfer your attention from failure to success, from worry to calmness, from mental wanderings to concentration, from restlessness to peace, from peace to the divine bliss within.

Attention | Failure | Peace | Restlessness | Worry | Failure |

Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness.

Experience | Restlessness |

Phyllis McGinley

Women are the fulfilled sex. Through our children we are able to produce our own immortality, so we lack that divine restlessness which sends men charging off in pursuit of fortune or fame or an imagined Utopia. That is why we number so few geniuses among us. The wholesome oyster wears no pearl, the healthy whale no ambergris, and as long as we can keep on adding to the race, we harbor a sort of health within ourselves.

Children | Fame | Fortune | Health | Men | Restlessness |

Pope John Paul II, born Karol Józef Wojtyła, aka Saint John Paul the Great NULL

In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a restlessness of the body and the senses: it is the restlessness of the external man. When the internal man has been reduced to silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action, so to speak, exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses and the body.

Body | Freedom | Man | Passion | Restlessness |

Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL

The longing of the worldly-minded for God is momentary, like a drop of water on a red-hot frying-pan. The water hisses and dries up in an instant. The attention of the worldly-minded is directed to the enjoyment of worldly pleasure. Therefore they do not feel yearning and restlessness for God.

Attention | Enjoyment | God | Longing | Restlessness | God |

Salvador Dalí, fully Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech

Many people do not reach their eighties because they try to stay in their forties too long.

Restlessness |

Elizabeth Gilbert

My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into a tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few can recognize that there is anther force operating here as well-the future tree itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding the evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born.

Better | Restlessness | Will |

Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And if God choose I shall but love thee better after death.

Greatness | Restlessness | Think |

Emmanuel Lévinas , originally Emanuelis Lévinas

The relation with the other will always be offering and gift, never an approach with ‘empty hands’.

Peace | Rest | Restlessness | Unity |