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

Charles Montagu Halifax, 1st Earl of Halifax, Lord Halifax

He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.

Chance | Character | Nothing | Will |

Lynn Hill, aka Lynn Hill-Raffa

The purpose of my existence as I climb is to adapt my personal dimensions to the environment around me at each moment. I become an active player sharing some of the responsibility for my own destiny, achieving a heightened sense of awareness and seeing the direct result of my efforts; either I fall or I reach the top. But the meaning does not come from conquering the rock. Purpose comes from moving in harmony with nature, rather than destroying it or altering it for my immediate satisfaction. What gives life meaning is the fulfillment of directing energy in a way that brings a higher order to, and harmony with, the environment I live in... The ultimate meaning of our lives is relative to how much we have given to others. The ultimate meaning of our lives is connected with death... I would like to know that I have inspired people to go beyond self-limiting stereotypes to experience and nurture the true richness of their passions.

Awareness | Character | Death | Destiny | Energy | Existence | Experience | Fulfillment | Harmony | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Self | Sense | Awareness |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it.

Chance | Character | Folly | Good | Life | Life | Nothing | Rights | Sense | Wisdom |

Bruce Herschensohn

Creativity always dies a quick death in rooms that house conference tables.

Character | Creativity | Death |

Louise Imogen Guiney

There was once a golden age because golden hearts beat in it. If it comes again, it will scarcely be through scientific progress.

Age | Character | Progress | Will |

John-Roger & Peter McWilliams NULL

Fear breeds lack of experience, lack of experience breeds ignorance, ignorance breeds more fear. It is a vicious cycle.

Character | Experience | Fear | Ignorance |

David Hume

Custom is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared I the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

Action | Character | Custom | Ends | Events | Experience | Future | Influence | Life | Life | Means | Memory | Past | Present | Speculation |

David Hume

Among the other excellencies of man, this is one, that he can form the image of perfection much beyond what he has experience of in himself, and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.

Character | Experience | Man | Perfection | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

William James

Nature... is frugal in her operations and will not be at the expense of a particular instinct to give us that knowledge which experience and habit will soon produce. Reproduced sights and contacts tied together with the present sensation in the unity of a thing with a name, these are complex objective stuff out of which my actually perceived table is made. Infants must go through a long education of the eye and ear before they can perceive the realities which adults perceive. Every perception is an acquired perception.

Character | Education | Experience | Habit | Instinct | Knowledge | Nature | Perception | Present | Unity | Will |

David Hume

All beings in the universe, consider’d in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other. ‘Tis only by experience we learn their influence and connexion.

Character | Experience | Influence | Universe | Learn |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

From their own experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.

Character | Experience | History | Men | Learn |

William James

My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind - without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.

Character | Experience | Mind |

David Hume

Nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object... The mind has never anything present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connection with objects. The supposition of such a connection is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.

Character | Experience | Mind | Nothing | Object | Perception | Present |

Phyllis Huffman

I found death to be a simple shift in consciousness. It was painless, instantaneous and nothing to be feared. In fact, it felt more natural not to breath than to breathe. It was wonderful not to 'wear' a body. I had complete mobility, perfect memory and knowledge. I was free! I found no fear in dying. The fear came for me when I realized that I was still alive, and I didn't 'stay dead'.You don't lose your cravings or addictions in dying, but I found that you do lose your ability to satisfy them. The opportunities that existed before are no more. Whatever are your attitudes, beliefs, thoughts, ideas, feelings, expectations or apprehensions...that's what you'll wear and that's what you'll be. They become your body and your world. No more games. No more secrets. No more cover-up. You become what you really are! We are in a condition of our own creation. When we die we reap our own harvest.

Ability | Body | Character | Consciousness | Death | Fear | Feelings | Ideas | Knowledge | Memory | Nothing | World |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

We should utilize every experience as a tool for elevation. Even when someone acts in a condescending manner towards us, we can view the situation in a positive manner and grow from the experience. When we suffer emotionally from a situation, we create the negative attitudes ourselves and hence the emotional suffering is our own creation.

Character | Experience | Suffering |

Lyndon Johnson, fully Lyndon Baines Johnson, aka LBJ

In this age when there can be no losers in peace and no victors in war, we must recognize the obligation to match national strength with national restraint.

Age | Character | Obligation | Peace | Restraint | Strength | War |

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 |

Thomas Jefferson

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Chance | Character | Conscience | Freedom | Good | Health | Life | Life | Occupation | Happiness |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Experience, it is said, makes a man wise. that is very silly talk. If there were nothing beyond experience it would simply drive him mad.

Character | Experience | Man | Nothing | Wise |