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

Gloria D. Karpinski

We draw to ourselves what we really want, not what we think we want. It’s not a bad idea to ask ourselves now and then, Whose truth are we living? Whose dream are we dreaming?

Character | Truth | Think |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

All relationship is based on the image that you have built around another and the other has built about you... What is relationship? If the image has come to an end, which is the content of consciousness that makes up your consciousness, when the various images you have about yourself, about everything, come to an end, then what is the relationship between you and her? Then is there an observer observing apart from the thing it has observed? Or is it a total movement of love in relationship? Are you getting it? So love is a movement in relationship in which the observer is not.

Character | Consciousness | Love | Relationship |

Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL

It is a wretched thing to lean on the reputation of others, lest the pillars being withdrawn the roof should fall in ruins.

Character | Reputation |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Self-knowledge brings tranquillity to the mind, and then only can truth come into being. Truth cannot be sought after. Truth is the unknown, and that which you seek is already known. Truth comes into being unsought when the mind is without prejudice, when there is the understanding of the whole process of ourselves.

Character | Knowledge | Mind | Prejudice | Self | Self-knowledge | Tranquility | Truth | Understanding |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

A man could not have anything upon his conscience if God did not exist, for the relationship between the individual and God, the God-relationship, is the conscience, and that is why it is so terrible to have even the least thing upon one’s conscience, because one is immediately conscious of the infinite weight of God.

Character | Conscience | God | Individual | Man | Relationship | God |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.

Character |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Character | Error | Knowledge | Truth |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going down on one's knees and thanking him.

Character | Existence | God |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?... Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest on futilities.

Character | Man | Question |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth that like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard... Even in time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. If we had no other purpose in life, it would be good enough to simply take care of them and goose them once in a while.

Care | Character | Enough | Focus | God | Good | Greed | Life | Life | People | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Truth |

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Praise is sometimes a good thing for the diffident and despondent. It teaches them properly to rely on the kindness of others.

Character | Good | Kindness | Praise |

Walter Savage Landor

Lies are as communicative as fleas; and truth is as difficult to lay hold upon as air.

Character | Truth |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Subjectivity is the truth. By virtue of the relationship subsisting between the eternal truth and the existing individual, the paradox came into being. Let us now go further, let us suppose that the eternal essential truth is itself a paradox. How does the paradox come into being? By putting the eternal essential truth into juxtaposition with existence. Hence when we posit such a conjunction with the truth itself, the truth becomes a paradox. The eternal truth has come into being in time: this is the paradox.

Character | Eternal | Existence | Individual | Paradox | Relationship | Time | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

The truth of not-knowing is the only factor from which one can move. The truth of that is stable. A mind that does not know is in a state of learning. The moment I say I have learned, I have stopped learning and that stopping is the stability of division.

Character | Knowing | Learning | Mind | Truth |

Ivan Kozlof, fully Ivan Ivanovich Kozlov

Money is a bottomless sea, in which honor, conscience, and truth may be drowned.

Character | Conscience | Honor | Money | Truth |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual.

Character | Individual | Truth | Uncertainty |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as to a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.

Action | Character | God | Mind | Truth | Understanding | Wishes | God | Understand |