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

Ensworth Reisner

The strong man does not always ride the wave of success. The strong man is the one who can turn the misfortune of life into character; the one who is committed to the essential and not the superficial. He faces and overcomes inner challenges and depends not on outer acclaim.

Character | Life | Life | Man | Misfortune | Success | Misfortune |

W. D. Ross, fully Sir William David Ross

It would be a mistake to found a natural science on ‘what we really think’ ... opinions are interpretations, and often misinterpretations, of sense-experience; and the man of science must appeal from these to sense-experience itself, which furnishes his real data. In ethics no such appeal is possible... the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated people are the data of ethics just as sense-perceptions are the data of a natural science.

Character | Convictions | Ethics | Experience | Man | Mistake | People | Science | Sense |

A. J. S. NULL

Humanity goes on and on almost in despair, hoping some time to find rest and peace and fullness of life in the undefined future, when, in fact, all these and more are here now if we would (could?) only reach out our hand and take them.

Character | Despair | Future | Humanity | Life | Life | Peace | Rest | Time |

Kenneth Ring

The meaning of life has something to do with realizing that our essence is perfect love, then going on to live our lives upon that truth, experiencing each day as a miracle and every act as sacred.

Character | Day | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Sacred | Truth |

John of Ruysbroeck, also St. John of Ruysbroeck, Jan van Ruusbroec, Jan (or Johannes) van Ruysbroeck NULL

The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possess it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life. Our created essence and our life are attached to it without mediation as to their eternal cause.

Cause | Character | Eternal | God | Life | Life | Mankind | God |

Quintilian, fully Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, also Quintillian and Quinctilian NULL

Many good people admire what is bad, but no one condemns what is good.

Character | Good | People |

Nicholas Rescher

One cannot properly appreciate the human realities so long as one labors under the adolescent delusion that people get the fates they deserve.

Character | Delusion | People |

Arthur Rubenstein

I must accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Character | Life | Life | People | Happiness |

Walt Rostow, fully Walt Whitman Rostow, aka W.W. Rostow

An awful lot of life on this planet is one man’s assessment of the other.

Character | Life | Life | Man |

Charles A. Reich

To start from self does not mean to be selfish. It means to start from premises based on human life and the rest of nature, rather than premises that are the artificial products of the Corporate State, such as power or status. It is not an ‘ego trip’ but a radical subjectivity designed to find genuine values in a world whose official values are false and distorted. It is not egocentricity, but honesty, wholeness, genuineness in all things. It starts from self because human life is found as individual units, not as corporations and institutions; its intent is to start from life.

Character | Ego | Honesty | Individual | Life | Life | Means | Nature | Power | Rest | Self | Wholeness | World |

William Robertson

Truth lies in character... Truth is a thing not of words, but of life and being.

Character | Life | Life | Truth | Words |