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

Adolfo Barcella

Unrequited love is the meaning of life. We’re here to love but not to be loved, to give but not receive. Our mission in this world is to improve humanity and leave a better history than we found. Only selfless love has such power. Only love without interest or expectation of reward can change human beings... To give love without receiving love is the truest love and brings the greatest happiness there is in life.

Better | Change | Character | Expectation | History | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Mission | Power | Receive | Reward | World | Expectation | Happiness |

Richard Baxter

I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth.

Character | Earth | Expectation | Experience | Heaven | Love | Soul | Expectation | Friends |

William Bolitho, pen name for Charles William Ryall

The highest part of the art of life is the expectation of miracles.

Art | Character | Expectation | Life | Life | Miracles | Art | Expectation |

William Congreve

Uncertainty and expectation are the joyous of life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing or a wish discovers the folly of the chase.

Character | Expectation | Folly | Life | Life | Security | Uncertainty | Wisdom | Expectation |

Owen Feltham

All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than enjoyment; abut all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than expectation.

Character | Enjoyment | Expectation | Expectation |

Henry Home, Lord Kames

We part more easily with what we possess, than with our expectations of what we wish for; because expectation always goes beyond enjoyment.

Character | Enjoyment | Expectation | Expectation |

Christian Nestell Bovee

There is no sense of weariness like that which closes a day of eager and unintermitted pursuit of pleasure. The apple is eaten and the core sticks in the throat. Expectation has given way to ennui, and appetite to satiety.

Appetite | Day | Ennui | Expectation | Pleasure | Satiety | Sense | Wisdom | Expectation |

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

We part more easily with what we possess, than with the expectation of what we wish for: and the reason of it is, that what we expect is always greater than what we enjoy.

Expectation | Reason | Wisdom | Expectation |

James Frank Dobie

Putting on the spectacles of science in expectation of finding the answer to everything looked at signifies inner blindness.

Expectation | Science | Wisdom | Expectation |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

“Do you want to be healed?” translates into “Do you want to exorcise your belief in and expectation of illness?

Belief | Expectation | Wisdom | Expectation |

Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

Describes the professional artist as a morally suspect, even socially dangerous, conman, who from a deliberately chosen position of spiritual alienation, yet offers the ambiguous, self-serving products of his art, in expectation not only of support and remuneration, but also of social approval and even adoration as genius. [Paraphrased]

Alienation | Art | Expectation | Genius | Position | Remuneration | Self | Wisdom | Approval | Expectation |

Tom Butler-Bowdon

The clarity of expectation produces Whitmore’s twin performance pillars of greater responsibility and awareness.

Awareness | Expectation | Responsibility | Expectation |

Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter

When you abandon the expectation that certainty is possible, you open yourself to the proliferation of possibilities, to the proliferation of alternative visions of the “best” that are available, and you reconcile yourself to the realization that this process is without end. You can never get it exactly right. Every answer, every act is but provisional.

Expectation | Right | Expectation |

Yves Congar, fully Yves Marie-Joseph Congar

Congreve, William Congreve - Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing and the overtaking and possessing of a wish, discovers the folly of the chase.

Expectation | Folly | Life | Life | Security | Uncertainty | Expectation |

Os Guiness

Too much to live with, too little to live for… In our own day this question of life purpose is more urgent than ever. Three factors have converged to fuel a search for significance without precedent in human history. First, the search for the purpose of life is one of the deepest issues of our experiences as human beings. Second, the expectation that we can all live purposeful lives has been given a gigantic boost by modern society’s offer of the maximum opportunity for choice and change in all we do. Third, our fulfillment is thwarted by this stunning fact: Out of more than a score of great civilizations in human history, modern Western civilization is the very first to have a no agreed-on answer to the question of the purpose of life… Most of us in the midst of material plenty, have spiritual poverty.

Change | Choice | Civilization | Day | Expectation | Fulfillment | History | Life | Life | Little | Opportunity | Plenty | Poverty | Precedent | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Search | Society | Expectation |

Fritz A. Rothschild

Fear is the anticipation and expectation of evil or pain, as contrasted with hope which is the anticipation of good. Awe, on the other hand, is the sense of wonder and humility inspired by the sublime or felt in the presence of mystery. Fear is “a surrender of the succors which reason offers,” awe is the acquisition of insights which the world holds in store for us. Awe, unlike fear, does not make us shrink from the awe-inspiring object, but, on the contrary, draws us near to it. That is why awe is compatible with both love and joy.

Anticipation | Awe | Evil | Expectation | Fear | Good | Hope | Humility | Joy | Love | Mystery | Object | Pain | Reason | Sense | Surrender | Wonder | World | Expectation |

Sharon Salzberg

Generosity’s aim is twofold: we give freely to others, and we give freely to ourselves. Without both aspects, the experience is incomplete. If we give a gift freely, without attachment to a certain result or expectation of what will come back to us, that exchange celebrates freedom both within ourselves as the giver and the receiver… In a moment of pure giving, we really become one.

Expectation | Experience | Freedom | Generosity | Giving | Will | Expectation |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

A way of life that bases itself on materialism, i.e., on permanent, limitless expansionism in a finite environment, cannot last long, and that its life expectation is the shorter the more successfully it pursues its expansionist objectives.

Expectation | Life | Life | Materialism | Objectives | Expectation |