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 Elof Boodin

All is not right with the world, but with the grace of God we can in a measure recreate the world into something nobler and more beautiful.

God | Grace | Right | World | God |

Wolf Biermann, fully Karl Wolf Biermann

Life goes at such a terrific pace--a few years full of youth and grace and then you fall flat on your face before world history.

Grace | History | Life | Life | World | Youth | Youth |

Rachel Carson, fully Rachel Louise Carson

Lulled by the soft sell and the hidden persuader, the average citizen is seldom aware of the deadly materials with which he is surrounding himself; indeed, he may not realize he is using them at all.

R. L. Bruckberger, fully Raymond Léopold Bruckberger

If the Day of Judgment came tomorrow, and God asked us what we had made of His revelation, of His grace and our freedom… we would be hard put to it to explain the advantages of a machine civilization whose highest efficiency is used for murder and slavery.

Civilization | Day | Efficiency | Freedom | God | Grace | Judgment | Murder | Revelation | Slavery | Tomorrow | God | Murder |

John Cotton

Not in any prescribed form of prayer, or studied liturgie, but in such manner as the Spirit of grace and prayer teacheth all the people of God.

God | Grace | People | Prayer | Spirit |

Dionysius the Areopagite, aka Saint Dionysius the Areopagite NULL

The simple, absolute, and unchangeable mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness.

Absolute | Darkness | Obscurity | Obscurity | Silence | Truth |

Dionysius the Areopagite, aka Saint Dionysius the Areopagite NULL

Guide us to the topmost height of mystic love where the simple absolute and unchangeable mysteries of heavenly truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the Secret Silence.

Absolute | Love | Obscurity | Obscurity | Silence | Truth |

John Dewey

The things in our civilization we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link. Ours is the responsibility of conserving, transmitting, rectifying and expanding the heritage of values we have received, that those who come after us may receive it more solid and secure, more widely accessible and more generously shared that we have received it. Here are all the elements for a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class or race. Such a faith has always been implicitly the common faith of mankind.

Civilization | Faith | Grace | Mankind | Race | Receive | Responsibility |

Emmet Fox

You grow in grace and understanding by solving your daily problems as they arise, by the Practice of the Presence of God, by a tolerant attitude toward others, by plan horse sense (which is Divine Wisdom in you), by sincere and honest dealing at all times, and by cultivating a true sense of humor – which always brings us nearer to God. The great point is that life is to be met and mastered. Outer conditions and appearances are simply of no importance in themselves except as they supply material for growth.

God | Grace | Growth | Humor | Life | Life | Plan | Practice | Problems | Sense | Understanding | Wisdom |

Owen Flanagan

Three claims: (1) Consciousness exists. There exist conscious mental states, events, and processes that have the property of being conscious. (2) Consciousness has depth, hidden structure, hidden and possibly multiple functions, and hidden natural and cultural history. Conscious mental states supervene on brain states. (3) Conscious mental states, processes, events – possibly conscious supervisory faculties, if there are any – are heterogeneous in phenomenal world. A theory of consciousness will in the end be part of a unified theory of the mind.

Consciousness | Events | History | Mind | Property | Will | World |

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, fully Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange

Grace does not destroy our liberty by its certain efficacy; rather by that very efficacy divine grace moves the free will without doing violence to it.

Destroy | Free will | Grace | Liberty | Will |

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.

Action | Chance | Grace | Ideas | Ignorance | Initiative | Magic | Power | Providence | Truth | Think |

Julian Jaynes

O what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all - what is it?

Consciousness | Counsel | Mind | Nothing | Study | Will | World |

Fritz Künkel

Immense hidden powers seem to lurk in the unconscious depths of even the most common man - indeed, of all people without exception. It is these powers, when put under pressure, that are responsible for all great creative efforts. The men who make history are those who - consciously or unconsciously - turn the switch on the inner switchboards of human character. Pour out all your fears and anxieties, malicious joy and greed and hatred, and you will be astonished at the terrific amount of power which is pent up in your unconscious mind. We can release this power and transform it from negative into positive power, only by bringing into the open, into the light of consciousness, and by accepting ourselves as we are, even though the mountains of debts seem to crush us. This is the principle of honesty. And it is clear that it can be applied only if connected with the principle of faith.

Character | Consciousness | Faith | Greed | History | Honesty | Joy | Light | Man | Men | Mind | People | Power | Will |

Thomas Merton

There is in all visible things… a hidden wholeness.

Wholeness |

Vincent McNabb

Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.

Control | God | Grace | Hope | God |

Fritz A. Rothschild

It is only the idea of a divine presence hidden within the rational order of nature which is compatible with our scientific view of nature and in accord with our sense of the ineffable.

Nature | Order | Sense |

Prabhavananda, fully Swami Prabhavananda NULL

The breeze of God’s grace is blowing continually. You have to set your sail to catch that breeze.

God | Grace |