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

Robert Hall

Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass; and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes great things little - diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings, and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our eye, and multiplies God’s mercies, which, in a distance, lost their greatness.

Blessings | Character | Ends | Faith | God | Greatness | Little | Looks | Right | Time | Wrong | Infidelity |

William James

So far as man stands for anything, and is productive or originative at all, his entire vital function may be said to have to deal with maybes. Not a victory is gained, not a deed of faithfulness or courage is done, except upon a maybe; not a service, not a sally of generosity, not a scientific exploration or experiment or textbook, that may not be a mistake. It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

Character | Courage | Enough | Experiment | Faith | Generosity | Man | Mistake | Service |

Anna Jameson

The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself.

Character | Competition | Man | Wise |

William James

Our faith is faith in someone else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this most the case.

Character | Faith |

William James

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.

Art | Character | Knowing | Wise | Art |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Faith is a pre-condition of all systematic knowing, all purposive doing and all decent living. Societies are held together, not primarily by the fear of the many for the coercive power of the few, but by a widespread faith in the other fellow’s decency.

Character | Faith | Fear | Knowing | Power |

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 |

David Hume

It seems evident, that men are carried, by a natural instinct or prepossession, to repose faith in their senses; and that, without any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist, though we and every sensible creature were absent or annihilated.

Character | Faith | Instinct | Men | Perception | Reason | Repose | Universe |

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 |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.

Character | Man | Wise | Govern |

Thomas Jefferson

An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second.

Character | Heart | Knowing |

Louis Kronenberger

Nominally a great age of scientific inquiry, ours has actually become an age of superstition about the infallibility of science; of almost mystical faith in its nonmystical methods; above all... of external verities; of traffic-cop morality and rabbit-test truth.

Age | Character | Faith | Inquiry | Morality | Mystical | Science | Superstition | Truth |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Character | Man | Right | Wise | Happiness |

Holger Kalweit

The fool exposes the limitations of human criteria, confronts us anew with the undefined nature of our cosmic existence, leads us backstage to make us aware of the artificiality of our cultural values, and then shows us a world without limit, because it is neither categorized nor ordered in accordance with artificial opposites. The sick jester removes these opposites, tears down external and internal barriers and causes us to tumble head over heels from our tailor-made world of lines and demarcations into a more comprehensive and holistic dimension that has no beginning or end.

Beginning | Character | Existence | Nature | Tears | World |

John Keble

The childlike faith that asks not sight, waits not for wonder or for sign, believes, because it loves, aright, shall see things greater, things divine.

Character | Faith | Wonder |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Faith alone defends.

Character | Children | Danger | Experience | Faith | Men | Nature | Security | Superstition | Danger |