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

Arthur W Osborn

I am an infinitesimal and evanescent fragment in this vast universe. True, but it is no less true that this vast universe is an infinitesimal and evanescent appearance within me. What-is is just the same whether manifested in a universe or not. The pure sense of being that I feel just is; it is the same as what-is. To say that there is no “I” is the same as saying that there is nothing else.

Appearance | Nothing | Sense | Universe |

Author Unknown NULL

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

Humor | Imagination | Man | Sense |

Aristotle NULL

There is no more important element in the formation of a virtuous character than a rightly directed sense of pleasure and dislike; for pleasure and pain are coextensive with life, and they exercise a powerful influence in promoting virtue and happiness in life.

Character | Important | Influence | Life | Life | Pain | Pleasure | Sense | Virtue | Virtue | Happiness |

Ayn Rand, born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum

What is a demanding pleasure? A pleasure that demands the use of one's mind; not in the sense of problem solving, but in the sense of exercising discrimination, judgment, awareness.

Awareness | Judgment | Mind | Pleasure | Sense |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

The contention that time is unreal and that the world of sense is illusory must, I think, be regarded as based upon fallacious reasoning... Both in thought and in feeling, to realize the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Contention | Sense | Thought | Time | Wisdom | World | Thought |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not endured with patient resignation.

Duty | People | Resignation | Sense | Work |

Blaise Pascal

For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature; and that thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions, according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one step with sense and judgment, unless we regulate our course by the truth of that pint which ought to be our ultimate end.

Death | Eternal | Eternity | Judgment | Life | Life | Nature | Sense | Truth |

Bhagavad Gītā, simply known as Gita NULL

Affection and aversion for the objects of sense abide in the senses; let none come under the dominion of these two; they are obstructers of the path.

Sense |

Benjamin Jowett

By mysticism we mean, not the extravagance of erring fancy, but the concentration of reason in feeling, the enthusiastic love of good, the true, the one, the sense of infinity of knowledge and of the marvel of the human faculties.

Extravagance | Good | Knowledge | Love | Mysticism | Reason | Sense |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

The sense of existence is the greatest happiness.

Existence | Sense |

Carl Sagan

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.

Age | Common Sense | Sense |

Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens

The suspense - the fearful, acute suspense, of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick; the desperate anxiety "to be doing something" to relieve the pain or lessen the danger which we have no power to alleviate; and the sinking of soul which the sad sense of our helplessness produces, what tortures can equal these, and what reflections or efforts can, in the full tide and fever of time, allay them.

Anxiety | Anxiety | Balance | Danger | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Mind | Pain | Power | Sense | Soul | Suspense | Time | Danger |

Blanche DeVries Bernard

The first and last lesson of Yoga is the attitude of mind and heart. The aim of Yoga is to unite mind, body, spirit. The reward of yoga practice is the conversion of physical energy into mind power. The practices give a definite sense of control and raise the levels of consciousness awareness. These practices are not to be done competitively, to exhibit to one's friends, to expand the ego. While each of us, according to our temperament, must find the best mental approach, it should be one of self-surrender. Quiet, but joyful. Concentrated. Never strained. Outer control of the body is a means of regulating the inner functioning.

Awareness | Body | Consciousness | Control | Ego | Energy | Heart | Lesson | Means | Mind | Power | Practice | Quiet | Reward | Self | Sense | Spirit | Surrender |

C. S. Lewis, fully Clive Staples "C.S." Lewis, called "Jack" by his family

If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality.

Better | Ideas | Morality | Sense |

Charles A Garfield

When completely focused on the present, logical and analytical processes are suspended, and as this occurs, the peak performer has the sense that all actions are occurring automatically and effortlessly.

Present | Sense |

Claude Bernard

Great men are never the promoters of absolute and immutable truths. Each great man belongs to his time and can come only at his proper moment, in the sense that there is a necessary and ordered sequence in the appearance of scientific discoveries.

Absolute | Appearance | Man | Men | Sense | Time |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

Can true love be anything but exacting? How can our sense of duty allow us to abstain from admonition?

Duty | Love | Sense |

Dan Millman, born Daniel Jay Millman

Rest your mind in the eternal present, but open your eyes to the highest possibilities of your life path. Trust the process of your life, keep your sense of humor, and, above all, remember that is never too late to experience the life you were born to live.

Eternal | Experience | Humor | Life | Life | Mind | Present | Rest | Sense | Trust |

David Sarnoff

Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving - if your sights are set far above the merely secure and mediocre.

Adventure | Glory | Sense | Will |