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

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The serious problems in life… are never fully solved. If ever they should appear to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost. The meaning and purpose of a problem seems not to lie in its solution but in our working at it incessantly.

Life | Life | Meaning | Problems | Purpose | Purpose |

Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

Sick or well, blind or seeing, bond or free, we are here for a purpose and however we are situated, we please God better with useful deeds than with many prayers or pious resignation. The temple or church is empty unless the good life fill it. The altar is holy if only it represents the altar of our heart upon which we offer the only sacrifices ever commanded – the love that is stronger than hate and the faith that overcometh doubt.

Better | Church | Deeds | Doubt | Faith | God | Good | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Pious | Purpose | Purpose | Resignation | Deeds | God |

Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

I believe the purpose of life is happiness. In today’s world being happy is inseparable from being responsible. We need to temper the extremes of our personal nature so that we can realize oneness with the universe. We must keep our destructive qualities from outweighing our constructive qualities.

Happy | Life | Life | Nature | Need | Oneness | Purpose | Purpose | Qualities | Temper | Universe | World |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Going back to the origin is called peace; it means reversion to destiny. Reversion to destiny is called eternity. He who knows eternity is called enlightened.

Destiny | Eternity | Means | Peace |

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 |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

As far we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Darkness | Existence | Light | Purpose | Purpose |

James Russell Lowell

God is in all that liberates and lifts; in all that humbles, sweetens, and consoles. A mystery of purpose gleaming through the secular confusion of the world, whose will we darkly accomplish, doing ours.

God | Mystery | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World |

Jean Baptiste Massillon

The world? It is a territory under a curse, where even its pleasures carry with them their thorns and their bitterness… A place where hope, regarded as a passion so sweet, renders everybody unhappy; where those who have nothing to hope for, think themselves still more miserable, where all that pleases, pleases never for long; and where ennui is always most the sweetest destiny and the most supportable that one can expect in it.

Bitterness | Destiny | Ennui | Hope | Nothing | Passion | World | Think |

Majjhima Nikāya

The purpose of the Holy Life does not consist in acquiring alms [or] honor... nor in gaining morality [or] concentration... That unshakable deliverance of the heart: that indeed, is the object of the Holy Life, that is its essence, that is its goal.

Alms | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Morality | Object | Purpose | Purpose |

J.W. Marriott, Jr., fully John Willard "Bill" Marriott, Jr.

Truly great companies maintain a set of core values and a core purpose that remain fixed while their business strategies and practices continually adapt to a changing world.

Business | Purpose | Purpose | World | Business |

Philip Novak

[On Judaism] Life’s purpose is to be found in the healing of the world so that the world may then reflect, for the good of all, the radiance of its creative source.

Good | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | World |

Philip Novak

Life’s purpose is to be found in the healing of the world so that the world may then reflect, for the good of all, the radiance of its creative source.

Good | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | World |

Mark Noll, fully Mark A. Noll

The road from discrete scientific observations to large-scale explanations of the origin and destiny of the universe always passes through political, social, religious, and cultural precincts.

Destiny | Universe |

Alice Hegan Rice, also known as Alice Caldwell Hegan

Only when we feel through all our vicissitudes some unfathomable purpose runs, and that by meeting life nobly and courageously we can co-operate in the fulfillment of that purpose, do we find peace.

Fulfillment | Life | Life | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Vicissitudes |