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

Max Horkheimer

The contradiction between what is requested of man and what can be offered to him has become so striking, the ideology so thin, the discontents in civilization so great that they must be compensated through annihilation of those who do not conform, political enemies, Jews, asocial persons, the insane. The new order of fascism is reason revealing itself as unreason.

Character | Civilization | Contradiction | Man | Order | Reason |

Victor Hugo

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

Character | Health | Soul | Wisdom |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

For most utopians, the incremental approach is far too slow and unglamorous. It lacks cataclysmic drama. They want to save the world today and send out a great press release tomorrow morning. Feeding a hungry child tonight doesn’t draw a crowd.

Character | Tomorrow | World | Child |

Yosef Y. Hurwitz

An honor-seeker is not really interested in self-improvement. He is only interested in gaining approval from others. Hence, he will disregard any fault he has if he knows that others will not notice it. On the other hand, a person who is able to forego his honor is able to focus on truth. His only thought is to do the right thing and he is willing to sacrifice his honor for his principles. Such a person will eventually receive honor, for he will constantly work on improving himself.

Character | Fault | Focus | Honor | Improvement | Principles | Receive | Right | Sacrifice | Self | Self-improvement | Thought | Truth | Will | Work | Approval | Fault | Thought |

David Hume

The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing this spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press; by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.

Ambition | Character | Defense | Dread | Freedom | Genius | Learning | Liberty | Nothing | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Wit | Ambition |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

It is the responsibility of the conscious, rational mind to decide what it accepts, retains, and dwells upon. It’s an immense responsibility.

Character | Mind | Responsibility |

Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face.

Character | Misfortune | Soul |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The present moment is the only aperture through which the soul can pass out of time into eternity, through which grace can pass out of eternity into the soul, and through which charity can pass from one soul in time to another soul in time.

Character | Charity | Eternity | Grace | Present | Soul | Time |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

We cannot presume to know what’s best for another soul. We have no way of knowing where that soul has been, what road it has traveled, what its secrets are, and what lessons it needs in order to attain spiritual awareness.

Awareness | Character | Knowing | Order | Soul |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Consumption, celebrity and the quest for perfection in this world are all subject to the law of diminishing returns: each successive acquisition and achievement will mean less than the one before. Diminishing returns are finally leading to diminished expectations about the promise of finding happiness without caring for our souls. Perhaps we are now ready to reject the hucksters of materialisms that have lured us down so many dead ends, and start again on the road that will lead us back to God.

Achievement | Character | Ends | God | Law | Perfection | Promise | Will | World | Happiness |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Each is driven by the most relentless, persistent instinct man possesses: the instinct for meaning, transcendence, wholeness and truth... Reality is a continuum that extends from thinking to the denser world of physical form.

Character | Instinct | Man | Meaning | Reality | Thinking | Truth | Wholeness | World |

David Hume

Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.

Character | Morality | Reason |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

The soul is where you do the work, where you make the changes.

Character | Soul | Work |

Anna Jameson

In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear there is a strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell next door to hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such intense haters.

Capacity | Character | Cowardice | Fear | Hate | Mind | Think |

E. W. Howe, fully Edgar Watson Howe

The greatest humiliation in life is to work hard on something from which you expect great appreciation, and then fail to get it.

Appreciation | Character | Life | Life | Work |

Ikinilik NULL

The only thing of value in a man is the soul. That is why it is the soul that is given everlasting life, either in the Land of the Sky or in the Underworld. The soul is man’s greatest power; it is the soul that makes us human, but how it does so we do not know. Our flesh and blood, our body, is nothing but an envelope about our vital power.

Body | Character | Land | Life | Life | Man | Nothing | Power | Soul | Value |

Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

The inlet of a man's mind is what he learns; the outlet is what he accomplishes. If his mind is not fed by a continued supply of new ideas which he puts to work with purpose, and if there is no outlet in action, his mind becomes stagnant. Such a mind is a danger to the individual who owns it and is useless to the community.

Action | Character | Danger | Ideas | Individual | Man | Mind | Purpose | Purpose | Work | Danger |

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 |