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

Luis Buñuel, fully Luis Buñuel Portolés

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.

Intelligence | Life | Life | Memory |

Luigi Pirandello

No name. No memory today of yesterday’s name; of today’s name, tomorrow. If the name is the thing; if a name in us is the concept of every thing placed outside of us; and without a name you don’t have the concept, and the thing remains in us as if blind, indistinct and undefined: well then, let each carve this name that I bore among men, a funeral epigraph, on the brow of that image in which I appeared to him, and then leave it in peace, and let there be no more talk about it. It is fitting for the dead. For those who have concluded. I am alive and I do not conclude. Life does not conclude. And life knows nothing of names. This tree, tremulous pulse of new leaves. I am this tree. Tree, cloud; tomorrow book or wind: the book I read, the wind I drink. All outside, wandering.

Life | Life | Memory | Nothing | Tomorrow |

Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust

There is no one, no matter how wise he is, who has not in his youth said things or done things that are so unpleasant to recall in later life that he would expunge them entirely from his memory if that were possible.

Life | Life | Memory | Wise | Youth | Youth |

Marcel Proust, fully Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust

The bonds that unite another person to ourselves exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.

Illusion | Man | Memory |

Cicero, fully Marcus Tullius Cicero, anglicized as Tully NULL

The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.

Life | Life | Memory | Nature |

Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus

The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

Memory |

Margaret Storm Jameson

Cruelty begins with the memory, and the pleasures of the memory are impure; they draw their strength along levels where no sun has reached.

Memory | Strength |

Martin Buber

That I discovered the deed that intends me, that, this movement of my freedom, reveals the mystery to me. But this, too, that I cannot accomplish it the way I intended it, this resistance also reveals the mystery to me. He that forgets all being caused as he decides from the depths, he that puts aside possessions and cloak and steps bare before the countenance--this free human being encounters fate as the counter-image of his freedom. It is not his limit but his completion; freedom and fate embrace each other to form meaning; and given meaning, fate--with its eyes, hitherto severe, suddenly full of light--looks like grace itself.

Fate | Freedom | Grace | Mystery | Possessions | Fate |

Mary Anne Radmacher

Speak quietly to yourself & promise there will be better days. Whisper gently to yourself and provide assurance that you really are extending your best effort. Console your bruised and tender spirit with reminders of many other successes. Offer comfort in practical and tangible ways - as if you were encouraging your dearest friend. recognize that on certain days the greatest grace is that the day is over and you get to close your eyes. Tomorrow comes more brightly.

Better | Comfort | Day | Grace | Promise | Spirit | Tomorrow | Will |

Mary Pipher, aka Mary Elizabeth Pipher or Mary Bray Pipher

I read of a Buddhist teacher who developed Alzheimer's. He had retired from teaching because his memory was unreliable, but he made one exception for a reunion of his former students. When he walked onto the stage, he forgot everything, even where he was and why. However, he was a skilled Buddhist and he simply began sharing his feelings with the crowd. He said, "I am anxious. I feel stupid. I feel scared and dumb. I am worried that I am wasting everyone's time. I am fearful. I am embarrassing myself." After a few minutes of this, he remembered his talk and proceeded without apology. The students were deeply moved, not only by his wise teachings, but also by how he handled his failings.

Feelings | Memory | Wise | Teacher |

Mary Anne Radmacher

Living in the present moment requires discretion toward memory. Without memory we’d have amnesia. What good would there be in that? Offer discretion and discernment for our past with a broad spectrum of forgiveness. As for our present moment, delight. And dedication to remain fully present to all the possibility

Dedication | Discernment | Discretion | Good | Memory | Past | Present |

Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson

Here on the pulse of this new day you may have the grace to look up and out and into your sister's eyes, into your brother's face, your country and say simply, very simply, with hope, "Good morning."

Day | Grace |

Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

The inner work is first of all the work of God's grace in the depth of the soul which subsequently distributes itself among the faculties of the soul, in that of Reason appearing as Belief, in that of Will as Love, and in that of Desire as Hope. When the Divine Light penetrates the soul, it is united with God as light with light. This is the light of faith. Faith bears the soul to heights unreachable by her natural senses and faculties.

Desire | Faith | God | Grace | Light | Reason | Soul | Will | Work | God |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Experience teaches that a strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.

Memory |

Michael Dorris, fully Michael Anthony Dorris

Fear is a memory of better times. Fear is a dream.

Better | Fear | Memory |

Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

Memory |