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

Stephen Hawking

Today scientists describe the universe in terms of two basic partial theories – the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. They are the great intellectual achievements of this century. The general theory of relativity describes the force of gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe (that is the structure on scales from only a few miles to as large as a million million million million miles – the size of the observable universe). Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, deals with phenomena on extremely small scales, such as a millionth of a millionth of an inch. Unfortunately, however, these two theories are known to be inconsistent with each other – they cannot both be correct.

Force | Phenomena | Size | Theories | Universe |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith is sensitiveness to what transcends nature, knowledge and will, awareness of the ultimate, alertness to the holy dimension of all reality. Faith is a force in man, lying deeper than the stratum of reason and its nature cannot be defined in abstract, static terms. To have faith is not to infer the beyond from the wretched here, but to perceive the wonder that is here and to be stirred by the desire to integrate the self into the holy order of living. It is not a deduction but an intuition, not a form of knowledge, of being convinced without proof, but the attitude of mind toward ideas whose scope is wider than its own capacity to grasp.

Abstract | Awareness | Capacity | Desire | Faith | Force | Ideas | Intuition | Knowledge | Lying | Man | Mind | Nature | Order | Reality | Reason | Self | Will | Wonder | Awareness |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Faith is not a miniature of thinking but its model, not its shadow but its root. It is a spiritual force in man, not dealing with the given, concrete, limited, but directed upon the transcendent. It is the spring of our creative actions.

Faith | Force | Man | Model | Thinking |

Stephen Hawking

The behavior of the universe on a very large scale seems to be simple and not chaotic.

Behavior | Universe |

Stanley Hopper, fully Stanley Romaine Hopper

Poetry will not save the world. But poetry can force the soul into the precincts of its last evasion.

Evasion | Force | Poetry | Soul | Will | World |

John Hick, fully John Harwood Hick

The meaning for us of our human life depends upon what we believe to be the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves

Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Universe |

Bakola wa Ilunga

Sexuality is a force to be controlled and transformed; its energy must be channeled and educated.

Energy | Force |

William Ralph Inge

If the universe is running down like a clock, the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time

Beginning | Time | Universe | World |

Jāmī, fully DJāmī, Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti NULL

The universe is the outward visible expression of the Real, and the Real is the inner unseen reality of the Universe.

Reality | Universe |

David Hockey

Life learns how to exploit and control its environment by perceiving, investigating, understanding, then utilizing the relationships that exist between objects and events. This is possible because the universe is causally constructed.

Control | Events | Exploit | Life | Life | Understanding | Universe |

Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley

Any conflict which prevents the personality from attaining wholeness is a hindrance: all taboos against considering any part of the universe in relation to man and his destiny are hindrances; so, too, are all restrictions upon the free use of reason, or the free appeal of conscience. In other words, any religion which is not an affirmation of the ultimate value of truth and knowledge, beauty and its expression, and goodness and moral action, which ever sets itself up against these, is in that respect a false, low and incomplete religion.

Action | Beauty | Conscience | Destiny | Knowledge | Man | Personality | Reason | Religion | Respect | Truth | Universe | Wholeness | Words | Respect | Beauty | Value |

William James

If things are ever to move upward, someone must be ready to take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try nonresistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. When they do succeed, they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldly prudence. Force destroys enemies; and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety. But nonresistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends; and charity regenerates its objects.

Charity | Force | Prudence | Prudence | Risk | Will |

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

He who by Tao purposes to help a ruler of men will oppose all conquest by force of arms; for such things are wont to rebound.

Conquest | Force | Men | Will |

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

Everything in the universe is created from something, which in turn is created from nothing.

Nothing | Universe |