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

Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Earth | Man | Nothing | Right | Wrong |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The conscience is… a brake, not a guide; a fence, not a way. It raises its voice after a wrong deed has been committed, but often fails to give us direction in advance of our actions.

Conscience | Wrong |

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer in action; it requires complete mobilization of heart, mind, and soul… For the soul, home is where the prayer is... Prayer calls for self-reflection, for contrition and repentance, examining and readjusting deeds and motivations, for recanting the ugly compulsions we follow, the tyranny of acquisitiveness, hatred, envy, resentment.

Action | Deeds | Envy | Heart | Mind | Prayer | Reflection | Repentance | Resentment | Self | Soul | Tyranny | Ugly | Deeds |

David Hockey

Sentient species think (to the extent that this is possible for their species) and act rationally most of the time. To do otherwise reduces the species chances of survival because their home (the universe) is rationally (i.e., causally) constructed. The universe’s causality binds thinking, language and intelligence together.

Intelligence | Language | Survival | Thinking | Time | Universe | Think |

William James

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil.

Conduct | Evil | Good | Hell | Theology | Will | World | Wrong |

Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley

Sooner or later, false thinking brings wrong conduct.

Conduct | Thinking | Wrong |

Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Better | Trust | Wrong |

Ronald Knox, fully Ronald Arbuthnott Knox

The real tragedy of our prayers is not that God so often refuses to grant them. The tragedy is we so often ask for the wrong thing.

God | Tragedy | Wrong | God |

Helen Keller. aka Helen Adams Keller

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Fidelity | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Wrong |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

Ends | Means | Wrong |

Barbara Kingsolver

The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.

Friend | Wrong |

Cleland Boyd McAfee

The average man who goes wrong in belief does it when he forgets that there are other truths besides his favorite one.

Belief | Man | Wrong | Truths |

Eugene Peterson

Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god.

Decision | God | Life | Life | Repentance | Wrong |

Wayne Muller

Acceptance of death is acceptance of freedom – freedom to live each day with clarity and courage… If we know we are going to die, all danger disappears. There is less fear about what can go wrong, because the worst that can possibly go wrong – our own death – is completely assured. All there is left to do is live, and live well.

Acceptance | Courage | Danger | Day | Death | Fear | Freedom | Wrong | Danger |

Nahuatl Wise Men including Nezahualcoyotl NULL

Where are we going? We came only to be born. Our home is beyond: In the realm of the defleshed ones. 4 I suffer: Happiness, good fortune never comes my way. Have I come here to struggle in vain? This is not the place to accomplish things. Certainly nothing grows green here: Misfortune opens its blossoms.

Fortune | Good | Nothing | Struggle |

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

Human morality is composed of four interconnecting principles: a genetic predisposition toward survival, the neural development of the brain, a social imperative toward group cohesion, and a cognitive propensity to make distinctions between right and wrong and good and evil. Our moral continuum appears to be strongly influenced by the degrees of connectedness we feel with others; the more connected we feel, the more we act with generosity, compassion and fairness.

Compassion | Evil | Fairness | Generosity | Good | Morality | Principles | Right | Survival | Wrong |

Kenichi Ohmae

Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.

Wrong |