Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Supplication

"Let us give thanks to God upon Thanksgiving Day. Nature is beautiful and fellowmen are dear, and duty is close beside us, and God is over us and in us. We want to trust Him with a fuller trust, and so at last to come to that high life where we shall be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let our request be made known unto God”; for that, and that alone, is peace." - Phillips Brooks

"[Anselm’s Proof God exists] God exists in our understanding… This means that the concept of God resides as an idea in our minds… God is a possible being, and might exist in reality. He is possible because the concept of God does not bear internal contradictions… If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater… This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great)… Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing. Suppose (theoretically) that God only exists in our understanding and not in reality. If this were true, then it would be possible for God to be greater then he is… This would mean that God is a being in which a greater is possible. This is absurd because God, a being in which none greater is possible, is a being in which a greater is possible… Herein lies the contradiction… Thus it follows that it is false for God to only exist in our understanding. Hence God exists in reality as well as our understanding." - Anselm of Canterbury, aka Saint Anselm or Archbishop of Canterbury NULL

"Everyone falls down. Getting back up is how you learn how to walk." - Walt Disney, fully Walter Elias "Walt" Disney