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

Alden C. Palmer

If one lives with Nature a little while, he soon recognizes the harmony of creation... Each of us is, therefore, an instrument of God. When one thinks of his humble self in this light, life takes on a more profound meaning.

Character | God | Harmony | Life | Life | Light | Little | Meaning | Nature | Self |

Doris Peel

Each of us has to learn that it's no true gift to have another say: "Beside you, nobody else matters -" since the only tribute to be trusted in life is, in the end, the one that means: "Because of you, all others in some way matter more."

Character | Life | Life | Means | Learn |

Austin Phelps

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. They surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.

Character | Ideas | Ignorance | World |

Plotinus NULL

Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. so do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.

Beauty | Character | Labor | Light | Virtue | Virtue | Work | Beauty |

John O'Brien

The desire of one man to live on the fruits of another's labor is the original sin of the world.

Character | Desire | Labor | Man | Sin | World |

Thomas W. Palmer

If you would be free from sin, fly temptation: he that does not endeavor to avoid the one cannot expect Providence to protect him from the other. If the first sparks of ill were quenched, there would be no flame, for how can he kill, that dares not be angry; or be an adulterer in act, who does not transgress in thought; or be perjured, that fears an oath; or defraud, that does not allow himself to covet?

Character | Kill | Providence | Sin | Temptation | Thought |

Theodore Parker

Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward, is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time.

Better | Character | Good | History | Man | Mankind | Men | Rule | Time | Loss |

Andrew Preston Peabody

One never learns by success. Success is the plateau that one rests upon to take breath and look down from upon the straight and difficult path, but one does not climb upon a plateau.

Character | Success |

Jianzhi Sengcan, Third Patriarch of Zen, Third Patriarch of Ch'an

The Perfect Way knows no difficulties, except that it refuses to make preferences. Only when freed from hate and love does it reveal itself fully and without disguise. A tenth of an inch’s difference, and heaven and earth are set apart. If you wish to see it before your own eyes have no fixed thoughts either for or against it. To set up what you like against what you dislike - this is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of the Way is not understood. Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose... Pursue not the outer entanglements, dwell not in the inner void; be serene in the oneness of things, and dualism vanishes of itself... Transformations going on in the empty world that confronts us appear to be real because of Ignorance. Do not strive to seek after the True, only cease to cherish opinions... One in all, All in One - if only this is realized, no more worry about not being perfect. When the mind and each believing mind and Mind, this is where words fail, for it is not of the past, present or future.

Character | Disease | Disguise | Earth | Future | Hate | Heaven | Ignorance | Love | Meaning | Mind | Oneness | Past | Peace | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Words | World | Worry |

Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn

There are wounds of self-love which one does not confess to one’s dearest friends.

Character | Love | Self | Self-love |

Alexander Pope

A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.

Character | Man | Power |

Antonio Porchia

The confession of one man humbles all.

Character | Man |

Jacob Potofsky, fully Jacob Samuel Potofsky

A gifted leader is one who is capable of touching your heart.

Character | Heart | Leader |