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

Thomas Hopko

We are here for communion with God who is Love, the One in whose image and likeness each one of us is made. We find this communion by loving as God loves us... The miracle of all miracles is the ability to transform through love the smallest, seemingly insignificant detail of the routine drudgery of everyday existence into paradise; the ability to become ourselves, at each moment, a fresh paradise to those around us, thereby becoming “gods by grace” for those who are “gods” to us. Each person accepts or rejects communion with God in his or her own unique manner... The act of communion comes always as grace. For those who know it, it is not life’s meaning, purpose or goal. It is life itself: God with us making us what God is.

Ability | Character | Existence | God | Grace | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Miracles | Paradise | Purpose | Purpose | Unique | God |

Victor Hugo

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are certain moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Body | Character | Soul |

David Hume

‘Tis one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it.

Character | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Deliverance is out of time into eternity, and is achieved by obedience and docility to the eternal Nature of Things. We have been given free will, in order that we may will our self-will out of existence and so come to live continuously in a “state of grace.” All our actions must be directed, in the last analysis, to making ourselves passive in relation to the activity and the being of divine Reality. We are, as it were, aeolian harps, endowed with the power either to expose themselves to the wind of the Spirit or to shut themselves away from it.

Character | Docility | Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Free will | Grace | Nature | Obedience | Order | Power | Reality | Self | Spirit | Time | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Whenever, for any reason, we wish to think of the world, not as it appears to common sense, but as a continuum, we find that our traditional syntax and vocabulary are quite inadequate. Mathematicians have therefore been compelled to invent radically new symbol-systems for this express purpose. But the divine Ground of all existence is not merely a continuum, it is also out of time, and different, not merely in degree, but in kind from the worlds to which traditional language and the languages of mathematics are adequate.

Character | Common Sense | Existence | Language | Mathematics | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Sense | Time | World | Think |

William James

A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.

Character | Man | Position | Responsibility | Will |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker is not really interested in self-improvement. He is only interested in gaining approval from others. Hence, he will disregard any fault he has if he knows that others will not notice it. On the other hand, a person who is able to forego his honor is able to focus on truth. His only thought is to do the right thing and he is willing to sacrifice his honor for his principles. Such a person will eventually receive honor, for he will constantly work on improving himself.

Character | Fault | Focus | Honor | Improvement | Principles | Receive | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-improvement | Thought | Truth | Will | Work | Approval | Fault | Thought |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

If there is freedom... there is a spiritual Reality, which it is the final end and purpose of consciousness to know; then all life is in the nature of an intelligence test, and the higher the level of awareness and the greater the potentialities of the creature, the more searchingly difficult will be the questions asked.

Awareness | Character | Consciousness | Freedom | Intelligence | Life | Life | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Will | Awareness |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The human species... capacity for good is infinite, since they can, they desire, make room within themselves for divine Reality. But at the same time their capacity for evil is, not indeed infinite (since evil is always ultimately self-destructive and therefore temporary), but uniquely great. Hell is total separation from God, and the devil is the will to that separation... To be diabolic on the grand scale, one must, like Milton’s Satan, exhibit in a high degree all the moral virtues, except only charity and wisdom.

Capacity | Character | Charity | Desire | Devil | Evil | God | Good | Hell | Reality | Satan | Self | Time | Will | Wisdom |

Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, also known as Ben Ezra or Abenezra

The righteous will always feel joy and never feel sad about what the Almighty has decreed upon them because they realize whatever He does is for their ultimate best.

Character | Joy | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Charity... unlike the lower forms of love, is not an emotion. It begins as an act of the will and is consummated as a purely spiritual awareness, a unitive love-knowledge of the essence of its object.

Awareness | Character | Charity | Knowledge | Love | Object | Will |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

If you live in a fearful state, there will always be something of which to be afraid... The final overcoming of fear is in the realization that the presence of god is a great safety net under you at all times. There is a part of you which can never be afraid.

Character | Fear | God | Will | God |

Washington Irving

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.

Character | Ideas | Language | Little | Man | Sound | Thought | Will | Words | Thought |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

If you had been looking for happiness in people and events, you discovered that it is not there. If you look to outer circumstances for your satisfaction cues, you will stay on an emotion seesaw... True joy is actually part of your nature... Events merely give us an excuse to feel it.

Character | Circumstances | Events | Joy | Nature | People | Will | Happiness |

Thomas Jefferson

He who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the dogmas in which they all differ.

Character | Heaven | Will |

Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face.

Character | Misfortune | Soul |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.

Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Actually, you will never have more potential for prosperity and wholeness than you have now.

Character | Prosperity | Wholeness | Will |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

We cannot presume to know what’s best for another soul. We have no way of knowing where that soul has been, what road it has traveled, what its secrets are, and what lessons it needs in order to attain spiritual awareness.

Awareness | Character | Knowing | Order | Soul |