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

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection.

Children | Father | Need | Wisdom |

H. L. Mencken, fully Henry Louis Mencken

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Democracy | Right | Rule | Wisdom |

Pierre Nicole

We need a reason to speak, but none to keep silent.

Need | Reason | Wisdom |

Nikita Ivanovich Panin

The husband needs to be blind at times; the wife deaf; both need much of the time to be dumb.

Husband | Need | Time | Wife | Wisdom |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

In order to acquire intellect one must need it. One loses it when it is no longer necessary.

Need | Order | Wisdom | Intellect |

Thomas E. O’Connor

The divisions and boundaries that we perceive based upon our five senses are, in effect, an illusion. It’s my belief that the meaning of life changes from day to day, second to second. I believe we’re here to learn that we’re part of a creative force - I would go so far as to call that force divine. We’re here to learn that we can create a world and that we have a choice in what we create, and that our world, if we choose, can be a heaven or hell.

Belief | Choice | Day | Force | Heaven | Hell | Illusion | Life | Life | Meaning | Wisdom | World | Learn |

Francis Quarles

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.

Better | Choice | Means | Pleasure | Society | Wisdom | Society |

Matthew B Ridgway, fully Matthew Bunker Ridgway

In setting our military goals we need first of all to recognize that most of the world’s most basic woes do not lend themselves to purely military solutions.

Goals | Need | Wisdom | World |

Publius Syrus

We should provide in peace what we need in war.

Need | Peace | War | Wisdom |

Theodore Roethke

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.

Need | People | Wisdom |

Beverly Rubik

[Paraphrase from “Brain and Mind” article] “Local” healing reflects information from subtle bioenergy fields. By contrast, healing that appears non-local in space and time may be mediated by “information associated with conscious intention”... In electromagnetic healing... the living human organism contains many highly sensitive natural oscillators that join to form a collective “biofield.” This field is “a collective property of the organism and cannot be reduced to biomolecular events.” In this case, information is transmitted by external fields of similar frequency, with healing occurring through a “tuning” effect... “Information is about relationship and exists only in relationship.” Therefore, information grounded in love - “the highest-quality relationship” - may produce healing by overcoming information originated from the more mechanical levels of physical organization... “For science and medicine to embrace life’s full capacity and the full human potential we need to go beyond mechanical concepts that were developed for machines.”

Capacity | Contrast | Events | Intention | Life | Life | Love | Machines | Mind | Need | Organization | Property | Relationship | Science | Space | Time | Wisdom |

Albert Schweitzer

My life is full of meaning to me. The life around me must be full of significance to itself. If I am to expect others to respect my life, then I must respect the other life I see, however strange it may be to mine... Ethics in our Western world has hitherto been largely limited to the relations of man to man. But that is limited ethics. We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also.

Ethics | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Need | Respect | Will | Wisdom | World | Respect |

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To endure is the first thing a child ought to learn, and that which he will have most need to know.

Need | Will | Wisdom | Child |

Gladys Bagg Taber

A time of quietude brings things into proportion and gives us strength. We all need to take time from the busyness of living, even it be only 10 minutes to watch the sun go down or the city lights blossom against a canyoned sky. We need time to dream, time to remember, and time to reach toward the infinite. Time to be.

Need | Strength | Time | Wisdom |

Ichabod Smith Spencer

You must make your choice whether to hold on to some thing which cannot save you, or let go, and fall into the hands of the Lord.

Choice | Lord | Wisdom |

Igor Feodorovitch Stravinsky, or Fyodorovich

Art postulates communion, and the other artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself.

Art | Joy | Need | Wisdom |

Simone Weil

Workers need poetry more than bread. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.

Eternity | Light | Need | Poetry | Religion | Wisdom |

Stewart Udall, Fully Stewart Lee Udall

Today the conservation movement finds itself turning back to ancient Indian land ideas, to the Indian understanding that we are not outside of nature, but of it... In recent decades we have slowly come back to some of the truths that the Indian knew from the beginning; that unborn generations have a claim on the land equal to our own; that men need to keep an ear to the earth, and to replenish their spirits in frequent contacts with animals and wild land.

Beginning | Conservation | Earth | Ideas | Land | Men | Nature | Need | Understanding | Wisdom | Truths |