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

William James

Consciousness... does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as “chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A “river” or a “stream” is the metaphor by which it is most naturally described.

Character | Consciousness | Nothing | Words |

William Dean Howells

Primitive societies without religion have never been found.

Character | Religion |

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 |

Washington Irving

He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts. He selects that language which will convey his ideas in the most explicit and direct manner. He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words. On the contrary, the man who talks everlastingly and promiscuously, who seems to have an exhaustless magazine of sound crowds so many words into his thoughts that he always obscures, and very frequently conceals them.

Character | Ideas | Language | Little | Man | Sound | Thought | Will | Words | Thought |

E. W. Howe, fully Edgar Watson Howe

A man will do more for his stubbornness than for his religion or his country.

Character | Man | Religion | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy unless he has first experienced their desolations.

Character | Philosophy | Religion |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Rites and vain repetitions have a legitimate place in religion as aids to recollectedness, reminders of truth momentarily forgotten in the turmoil of worldly distractions. When spoken or performed as a kind of magic, their use is either completely useless or else (and this is worse) it may have ego-enhancing results, which do not in any way contribute to the attainment of man’s final end.

Attainment | Character | Ego | Magic | Man | Religion | Rites | Truth | Turmoil |

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 |

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 |

Paul W. Ivey, fully Paul Wesley Ivey

Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they themselves excited about what they are doing, but they also get you excited.

Character | Enthusiasm | People | Study | Will | Work |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

Once begun, a task is easy; half the work is done.

Character | Work |

William Ralph Inge

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing. Boredom is a certain sign that we are allowing our faculties to rust in idleness. When people are bored, they generally look about for a new pleasure, or take a holiday. There is no greater mistake: what they want is some hard piece of work, some productive drudgery. Doctors are fond of sending their fashionable patients to take a rest cure. In nine cases out of ten a work cure would do them far more good.

Character | Good | Happy | Idleness | Mistake | Nothing | People | Pleasure | Rest | Work |

William James

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.

Character | God | Life | Life | Nature | Words |

Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz

A person’s first obligation is to work on having an orderly mind and to decide on what thoughts he will think about.

Character | Mind | Obligation | Will | Work | Think |

Walter Kerr, fully Walter Francis Kerr

The work we are doing is more or less the work we meant to do in life [but] it does not yield us the feeling of accomplishment we had expected... If I were required to put into a single sentence my own explanation of the state of our hearts, heads, and nerves, I would do it this way: we are vaguely wretched because we are leading half-lives, half-heartedly, and with only one-half of our minds actively, engaged in making contact with the universe about us.

Accomplishment | Character | Life | Life | Universe | Work |

B. C. Kher

Both the saint and the scientist must possess the same qualities in order to attain their ideals. But these qualities are selfless devotion, a meticulous love of truth, infinite patience, thoroughness, and a depth of mind which does not resent criticism. Without these qualities neither of the two can reach his goal. It is my firm belief that the goal which both science and religion reach by different routes is one and the same.

Belief | Character | Criticism | Devotion | Ideals | Love | Mind | Order | Patience | Qualities | Religion | Science | Truth |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people. It may be that our generation will have to repent not only for the diabolical actions and vitriolic words of the children of darkness, but also for the crippling fears and tragic apathy of the children of light.

Apathy | Character | Children | Darkness | Good | Light | People | Silence | Tragedy | Will | Words |

Stewart B. Johnson

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.

Business | Character | Force | Life | Life | Work | Business |