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

William James

We pass into mystical states from out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more, as from a smallness into a vastness, and at the same time as from an unrest to a rest. We feel them as reconciling, unifying states. They appeal to the yes-function more than to the no-function in us. In them the unlimited absorbs the limits and peacefully closes the account.

Consciousness | Mystical | Rest | Time |

Thomas Jefferson

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness) and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, which are totally unconnected with morality.

Morality | Murder | Observation | Reading | Reflection | Society | Time | Witness | Society |

Bakola wa Ilunga

Faith is not a momentary feeling, but a struggle against the discouragement that threatens us every time we meet with resistance.

Faith | Struggle | Time |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

We live not only in time and space but also in the knowledge of God. The events in the world reflect in him, and all existence is coexistence with God. Time and space are not the limits of the world. Our life occurs here and in the knowledge of God.

Events | Existence | God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Space | Time | World |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The time is always right to do what’s right.

Right | Time |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Right | Time |

Bernard Leeming

The tragedy of our time is “the treason of the clerks,” that is, the failure of our best minds to give themselves to contemplation of truth, and their undue preoccupation with immediate problems to the neglect of the deeper problems.

Contemplation | Failure | Neglect | Problems | Time | Tragedy | Treason | Truth | Failure | Contemplation |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Unless we prefer to be made fools of by our illusions, we shall, by carefully analyzing every fascination, extract from it a portion of our own personality, like a quintessence, and slowly come to recognize that we meet ourselves time and time again in a thousand disguises on the path of life. This, however, is a truth which only profits the man who is temperamentally convinced of the individual and irreducible reality of his fellow man.

Individual | Life | Life | Man | Personality | Reality | Time | Truth |

Donald R Keough

The time to be toughest is when things are going the best.

Time |

Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

Like all evolution in nature, the slow evolution of society is followed from time to time by periods of accelerated evolution which are called revolutions.

Evolution | Nature | Society | Time | Society |

Glenn W. Lehrer

Crystals are like concentrated knowledge pressed into crystalline form. They are the culmination of life force coming together in time and space. The crystal shows nature’s urge for symmetry and perfection. Our life purpose is like that – purposeful curiosity and imagination yearning for balance and beauty.

Balance | Beauty | Curiosity | Force | Imagination | Knowledge | Life | Life | Nature | Perfection | Purpose | Purpose | Space | Time |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man has dual citizenry. He loves both in time and in eternity; both in heaven and on earth. But he owes his ultimate allegiance to God.

Earth | Eternity | God | Heaven | Man | Time |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

Conscience | Cowardice | Position | Question | Right | Safe | Time |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have not used time much more effectively than the people of good will.

Good | People | Time | Will |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time itself become an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

God | Men | Progress | Time | Work |