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

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Committing to a dream is not a one-time occurrence. They must be done daily, hourly, continually. We must choose to commit to our choice, over and over... And the time to commit is now. And now. And now. And now. And now.

Character | Choice | Time |

Huang Po, also Huángbò Xīyùn

Your true nature is not lost in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of enlightenment. It was never born and can never die. It shines through the whole universe, filling emptiness, one with emptiness. It is without time or space, and has no passions, actions, ignorance, or knowledge. In it there are no things, no people, and no Buddhas; it contains not the smallest hairbreadth of anything that exists objectively; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, radiant beauty: absolute reality, self-existent and uncreated. How then can you doubt that the Buddha has no mouth to speak with and nothing to teach, or that the truth is learned without learning, for who is there to learn? It is a jewel beyond all price.

Absolute | Beauty | Character | Delusion | Doubt | Enlightenment | Ignorance | Knowledge | Learning | Nature | Nothing | People | Price | Reality | Self | Space | Teach | Time | Truth | Universe |

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 |

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

The vast majority of people are slavers to their desires. The true king who deserves a royal crown is only a person who is free from the pressures of his desires.

Character | Majority | People |

William Ralph Inge

On the whole, the unhappiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.

Cause | Character | Happy | People |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Many people are willing to rearrange the outer things in their lives, but few are willing to rearrange the priorities of their inner worlds. If your consciousness doesn’t change, you will continually re-create the same old circumstances.

Change | Character | Circumstances | Consciousness | People | Will | Old |

George Horne

Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. Idleness will be shut out at every avenue, and with her that numerous body of vices that make up her train.

Body | Character | Idleness | Method | Time | Will |

Pinchos Hurwitz

A large amount of physical pain and suffering is caused by one’s thoughts and behaviors. The desire for food causes people to overeat and consume food that is harmful to their health. Envy, anger, and honor-seeking lead to diseases of the heart, high blood pressure, nervous tension and excessive stress. Moreover, even when you pain is basically caused by physical symptoms, your mental attitude towards the pain can greatly increase or decrease the actual amount of suffering you experience. The pain you suffer from illnesses and injuries is frequently more psychological than physical. A person who learns to master a calm and serene attitude towards life trains himself to tolerate physical pain and the actual suffering is greatly lessened.

Anger | Character | Desire | Envy | Experience | Health | Heart | Honor | Life | Life | Pain | People | Suffering |

Paul W. Ivey, fully Paul Wesley Ivey

Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they themselves excited about what they are doing, but they also get you excited.

Character | Enthusiasm | People | Study | Will | Work |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Most people tend to perform the actions that require least effort, to think the thoughts that are easiest, to feel the emotions that are most vulgarly commonplace, to give the rein to desires that are most nearly animal.

Character | Effort | Emotions | People | Think |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The causal process takes place within time and cannot possibly result in deliverance from time. Such a deliverance can only be achieved as a consequence of the intervention of eternity in the temporal domain; and eternity cannot intervene unless the individual will makes a creative act of self-denial, thus producing, as it were, a vacuum into which eternity can flow.

Character | Eternity | Individual | Self | Self-denial | Time | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.

Body | Character | Consistency | Life | Life | Mind | Nature | People |

Gerald White Johnson

No man was ever endowed with a right without being at the same time saddled with a responsibility.

Character | Man | Responsibility | Right | Time |

Victor Hugo

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.

Character | Time | World |

Pinchos Hurwitz

“What thoughts were going through your mind when you received so much honor?” “I imagined that it was my funeral procession and the people were escorting me to the cemetery. This prevented me from feeling arrogant.”

Character | Honor | Mind | People |

Juan Ramón Jimenez, fully Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón

The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them.

Character | Desire | Haste | Life | Life | Means | Right | Time |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

Character | Idealism | Malice | Stupidity | Zeal |

Victor Hugo

He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out the plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of life which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.

Chance | Character | Day | Life | Life | Plan | Time | Will |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Every time you speak, you influence the world. You are either building it up or tearing it down.

Character | Influence | Time | World |