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

Cyril Connolly, fully Cyril Vernon Connolly

The secret of happiness (and therefore of success) is to be in harmony with existence, to be always willing "to be joined to the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot," to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

Existence | Harmony | Life | Life | Little | Success | Universe | Wisdom | Happiness |

Chilon of Lacedemon NULL

Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious, in the heavens immortal.

Earth | Famous | Men | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom |

Charles Darwin, fully Charles Robert Darwin

If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

Character | Life | Life | Music | Nature | Poetry | Rule | Wisdom | Loss |

William Cowper

Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign.

Harmony | Talking | Wisdom | Words |

Auguste Comte, formally Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte

The happiness of every man depends on the harmony between the development of his various faculties and the entire system of circumstances which govern his life.

Circumstances | Harmony | Life | Life | Man | System | Wisdom | Govern | Happiness |

Henry P. Van Dusen

Religion is the reaching out of one's whole being - mind, body, spirit, emotions, intuitions, affections, will - for completion, for inner unity, for true relation with those about us, for right relation to the universe in which we live. Religion is life, a certain kind of life, life as it should and could be, a life of harmony within and true adjustment without - life, therefore, in harmony with the life of God himself.

Body | Emotions | God | Harmony | Life | Life | Mind | Religion | Right | Spirit | Unity | Universe | Will | Wisdom | God |

Nathanael Emmons, also Nathaniel Emmons

The highest graces of music flow from the feelings of the heart.

Feelings | Heart | Music | Wisdom |

Thomas Dreier

All progress is made by men of faith who believe in what is right and, what is more important, actually do what is right in their own private affairs. You cannot add to the peace and goodwill of the world if you fail to create an atmosphere of harmony and love right where you live and work.

Faith | Harmony | Important | Love | Men | Peace | Progress | Right | Wisdom | Work | World |

Henry Havelock Ellis

The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.

Music | Prayer | Wisdom |

Nathaniel Emmons

The highest graces of music flow from the feelings of the heart.

Feelings | Heart | Music | Wisdom |

Jerry Falwell

No earthly purpose satisfies man’s longing to find his eternal reason for being... Man seeks incessantly for the meaning of life until he discovers the single eternal purpose for his existence. That purpose is the same for every man and woman. God created us because He longs to enter into fellowship with us. We belong to Him by right of creation. We can never know order and harmony in this life until we choose to establish a right relationship with God... Our search for meaning to life will end only when we establish that personal relationship with God and begin our walk with Him - for time and for eternity. Then comes that glorious personal fulfillment described in holy writ as the “peace that passes all understanding.”

Eternal | Eternity | Existence | Fulfillment | God | Harmony | Life | Life | Longing | Man | Meaning | Order | Peace | Purpose | Purpose | Reason | Relationship | Right | Search | Time | Understanding | Will | Wisdom | Woman | God |

Carl Frederick

The key to your universe is that you can choose.

Universe | Wisdom |

Mikhail Glinka, fully Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka

A nation creates music - the composer only arranges it.

Music | Wisdom |

James Hadfield, fully Captain James Arthur Hadfield

It is one of the many paradoxes of psychology that the pursuit of happiness defeats its own purpose. We find happiness only when we do not directly seek it. An analogy will make this clear. In listening to music at a concert, we experience pleasurable feelings only so long as our attention is directed towards the music. But if in order to increase our happiness we give all our attention to our subjective feeling of happiness, it vanishes. Nature contrives to make it impossible for anyone to attain happiness by turning into himself.

Attention | Experience | Feelings | Listening | Music | Nature | Order | Psychology | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wisdom | Happiness |

Heinrich Heine

The essence of music is revelation... There is something marvelous in music. I might almost say it is, in itself, a marvel. Its position is somewhere between the region of thought and that of a phenomena; a glimmering medium between mind and matter, related to both and yet differing from either. Spiritual, and yet requiring rhythm; material, and yet independent of space... It is spirit, yet in need of time, rhythm; it is matter, yet independent of space.

Mind | Music | Need | Phenomena | Position | Revelation | Space | Spirit | Thought | Time | Wisdom | Thought |

William Hamilton, fully Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet

The universe may be conceived as a polygon of a thousand or a hundred thousand sides or facets - and each of these sides or facets may be conceived as representing one special mode of existence. Now, of these thousand sides or modes, all may be equally essential, but three or four only may be turned towards us or be analogous to our organs.

Existence | Universe | Wisdom |

Jascha Heifetz

Music is for the betterment and enrichment of the individual, just as education and reading are. When people come together to play music as they do to play bridge, civilization will have taken its longest stride forward since the beginning of time. Music is something to live with always, and children should be taught to regard it as a close and inalienable friend.

Beginning | Children | Civilization | Education | Friend | Individual | Music | People | Play | Reading | Regard | Time | Will | Wisdom |