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

William James

If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.

Universe | Truths |

William James

To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nest full of eggs was not utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.

Effort | Sense | Spirit | Universe | Will |

William Morris

A man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body. Memory and imagination help him as he works.

Force | Giving | Good | Self | Sense |

William James

So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top.

Discipline | Force | War |

William James

The inner need of believing that this world of nature is a sign of something more spiritual and eternal than itself is just as strong and authoritative in those who feel it, as the inner need of uniform laws of causation ever can be in a professionally scientific head. . . Our faculties of belief were not primarily given us to make orthodoxies and heresies withall, they were given us to live by. And to trust our religious demands means first of all to live in the light of them. . . The part of wisdom as well as of courage is to believe what is in the line of your needs, for only by such belief is the need fulfilled. Refuse to believe, and you shall indeed be right, for you shall irretrievably perish. But believe, and again you shall be right, for you shall save yourself.

Better | Man | Means | Universe | Wrong | Following |

William Law

The pure, mere love of God is that alone from which sinners are justly to expect that no sin will pass unpunished, but that His love will visit them with every calamity and distress that can help to break and purify the bestial heart of man and awaken in him true repentance and conversion to God. It is love alone in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right band, which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his own salvation.

Agony | Body | Death | Eternal | Force | Man | Mortal | Progress | Reality |

William James

The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.

Dread | Rights | Universe |

William James

What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business.

Universe |

William James

When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.

Faith | Universe | Intellect |

William James

There is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!

Evil | Existence | Force |

William James

There is little of the grand style about these new prism, pendulum and chronograph philosophers. They mean business, not chivalry. . . . the experimental method has quite changed the face of science so far as the latter is a record of mere work done.

Fear | Good | Universe |

William James

Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.

Authority | Civilization | Cruelty | Discipline | Doubt | Duty | Force | Little | Manliness | Men | Opinion | Public | Question | War | Work | Cruelty | Afraid |

William Law

There is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love Thee for Thine own sake, whose joy Thou Thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, of Thee, for Thee; this it is, and there is no other... The merit of persons is to be no rule of our charity; but we are to do acts of kindness to those that least of all deserve it.

Awakening | Desire | Force | God | Heart | Life | Life | Longing | Man | Prayer | Spirit | Thought | Time | Will | God | Thought |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

The room was much as he had left it, festeringly untidy, though the effect was muted a little by a thick layer of dust. Half-read books and magazines nestled among piles of half-used towels. Half-pairs of socks reclined in half-drunk cups of coffee. What once had been a half-eaten sandwich had now half-turned into something that Arthur didn’t entirely want to know about. Bung a fork of lightning through this lot, he thought to himself, and you’d start the evolution of life off all over again.

Guests | History | Space | Time | Universe |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.

Life | Life | People | Quiet | Universe |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

Life | Life | Opportunity | Time | Universe | World |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

Well, sir, I think it's just as well that they are being phased out of the war effort, and that we are now going to detonate the supernova bomb. In the very short time since we were released from the time envelope-' 'Get to the point''The robots aren't enjoying it, sir.''What?''The war sir, it seems to be getting them down there's a certain world-weariness.''Well, that's all right, they're meant to be helping to destroy it.' 'yes, well they're finding it difficult, sir. They are afflicted with a certain lassitude. They're just finding it hard to get behind the job. They lack oomph.''What are you trying to say?' 'Well, I think they're very depressed about something, sir.' 'What on Krikkit are you talking about?' 'Well, in a few skirmishes they've recently, it seems that they go into battle, raise their weapons to fire and suddenly think, why bother? What, cosmically speaking, is it all about? And they just seem to get a little tired and a little grim.' 'And then what do they do?' 'Er, quadratic equations mostly, sir. Fiendishly difficult ones by all accounts. And then they sulk.' 'Sulk?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Whoever heard of a robot sulking?' 'I don't know, sir.

Choice | Dignity | Money | Truth | Universe | Afraid |

Douglas Adams, fully Douglas Noel Adams

The Universe is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.

Universe |

François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

When a man seems to be wise, it is merely that his follies are proportionate to his age and fortune.

Better | Force | Man |