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

Bernard Johannes Alfrink

Nobody can, even for the sake of unity, do violence to his conscience and to truth itself. Whoever in conscience feels obliged to understand the Word of God in a certain way cannot and may not declare he understands it otherwise.

Conscience | God | Truth | Unity | God | Understand |

Al-Hallaj NULL

I have meditated on the different religions, endeavoring to understand them, and I have found that they stem from a single principle with numerous ramifications. Do not therefore ask a man to adopt a particular religion (rather than another), for this would separate him from the fundamental principle. It is this principle itself which must come to seek him.

Man | Religion | Understand |

Nikolai Berdyaev, fully Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, also spelled Nichlas Berdiaev

Not from anything in the world would I be free from God; I wish to be free in God and for God. It is needful that my passion for a freedom without bounds should involve a conflict with the world, but not with God.

Freedom | God | Passion | World | God |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

In the religion which we shall call dynamic, prayer is independent of its verbal expression; it is an elevation of the soul that can dispense with speech.

Dynamic | Prayer | Religion | Soul | Speech |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

It is… by the superiority of its morality that a religion wins over souls and reveals them to a certain conception of things.

Morality | Religion | Superiority |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

The religion of a child depends on what its mother and father are, and not on what they say.

Father | Mother | Religion | Child |

John F. Wright

True religion is the life we live, not the creed we profess, and some day will be recognized by quality and quantity, and not by brand.

Creed | Day | Life | Life | Religion | Will | Wisdom |

Edward Scribner Ames

At last religion has come to reckon with the fact that its highest quest is not for a supernatural order but just for natural goodness in the largest and fullest measure.

Order | Religion |

Grace Helen Yerbury, fully Grace Helen Davies Yerbury

If man's religion is of any importance, it is not just a garment of expression of unity with and security in the professed beliefs of a special group. It is rather an attitude of respect for himself, his God, his fellowman, which underwrites all his activity, which is allowed freedom of expression within the limitations of that respect.

Freedom | God | Man | Religion | Respect | Security | Unity | Wisdom | Respect |

R. H. Blyth, fully Reginald Horace Blyth

A man’s religion is what he thinks about his relation to the universe, or rather, is what he feels about this relation; or better, it is what he does about this relation; or best it is how he acts.

Better | Man | Religion | Universe |

Leo Baeck

Piety… respects the little – the little man, the little task, the little duty. Through the little, religion meets the greatness that lies behind.

Duty | Greatness | Little | Man | Piety | Religion |

William Barrett, fully William Christopher Barrett

The decline of religion in modern times means simply that religion is no longer the uncontested center and ruler of man’s life., and that the church is no longer the final and unquestioned home and asylum of his being.

Church | Life | Life | Man | Means | Religion |

Robert Blatchford, fully Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford

Religions are not revealed; they are evolved. If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect as the first moment of its revelation as after ten thousand years of practice.

God | Practice | Religion | Revelation |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

Through religion all men get a little of what a few privileged souls possess in full.

Little | Men | Religion |

Thomas A. Carney

A man must put his mind into his religion if he will keep his heart in it.

Heart | Man | Mind | Religion | Will |

John Bunyan

You must also own religion in rags, as well as when in silver slippers; and stand by him, too, when bound in irons, as well as when he walketh the streets with applause.

Applause | Religion |

Francis Herbert Bradley

In religion fear and approval to some extent must always combine... In religion approval implies devotion, and devotion seems hardly possible, unless there is some fear, if only the fear of estrangement.

Devotion | Fear | Religion | Approval |