Great Throughts Treasury

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

Guidance

"Manifestly, an abyss separates the modernist form the traditionalist in their respective views of Torah. But an abyss, no matter how broad and deep, is a cleft in the earth's surface. the walls to either side will be of similar composition; they will be joined by a common ground below and may be even further united by a bridge from above. So, though the tradition and the modernist differ over Torah, both revere it, each after his own understanding and fashion; or to look to it for guidance and inspiration. And both stand on the same ground, are made of the same stuff, and surmount their disagreements in arches of shared purpose." - Milton Steinberg

"Yet it cannot be denied that faith is mere feeling. It has something like a cognitive content, and the existence of rival parties- scholastics and mystics- in the history shows that idea is a vital element in religion. Apart from this, religion on its doctrinal side, as defined by professor Whitehead, is ' a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended'. Now, since the transformation and guidance of man's inner and outer life is the essential aim of religion, it is obvious that the general truths that it embodies must not remain unsettled." - Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal

"Great men are not the mere products of the times in which they live, the epitome of their age, the creations of those formative currents of thought that are traversing the masses. Great men are the gifts of kind heaven to our poor world; instruments by which the Highest One works out His designs; light-radiators to give guidance and blessing to the travellers of time. Though far above us, they are felt to be our brothers; and their elevation shows us what vast possibilities are wrapped up in our common humanity. They beckon us up the gleaming heights to whose summits they have climbed. Their deeds are the woof of this world's history." - Moses Harvey

"Man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct . The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal." - Nikola Tesla

"This is the first nation that organized government on the basis of universal liberty with a free Church and a free State. This meant much at the time; it means much now and will continue to be the beacon of light and guidance for ourselves and of other nations. All that is good and practical and wise in the new developments can best be worked out under our form of government without destroying any of the basic principles upon which it rests." - Oscar S. Straus, fully Oscar Solomon Straus

"Wise guidance never violates people's Free Will. A superior who demands obedience of his subordinates should show respect for their capacity to understand, and also for their Innate Right to their own Free Will." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science"- except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche... There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age." - Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend

"Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. . . True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors… He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven… something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

"If you can presume that a child is competent to make a decision, you still want that child to have parental guidance whenever possible. But realistically, we know that in many cases that is not possible. I believe in parental notification. I think there are exceptions. There are situations in which the family is so dysfunctional that notification is not appropriate. In general, I think families should be part of helping their children through this." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"And through the true guidance and counsel that are revealed in the world (with each person knowing in his own heart what he must do) faith is able to grow, as it is written, "Counsels from afar, nurturing faith." Then everything can be rectified. For true counsel is a "wonder" - "I will acknowledge Your Name, for You have done wonders , counsels from afar...." This makes it possible to heal the "wondrous plagues" sent by God. Prayer also brings about "wonders", as it is written, "Awesome in praises [i.e. prayer], performing wonders" (Exodus 15:11). The same is true of ancestral merit: "In front of their fathers He performed wonders" (Psalms 78:12)." - Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav or Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Nachman from Uman NULL

"Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the Court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal." - Robert Bork, fully Robert Heron Bork

"Venerable Brothers, Mother Church rejoices that by the singular gift of Divine Providence, the long awaited day has finally dawned. Here at St Peter’s tomb, under the auspices of the Virgin Mother of God... the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is solemnly opened... ‘The greatest concern of the ecumenical Council is that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more effectively. That doctrine embraces the whole of man, body and soul. And since man is a pilgrim on this earth, it commands him to move steadily towards heaven... it is necessary that the Church should never depart from the sacred treasure of the truth inherited from the fathers. But at the same time, she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life in the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate... ‘The substance of the ancient doctrine of the Deposit of Faith is one thing, but the way in which it is presented is another." - Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, aka Vatican II

"The positive desire for self-work and growth is often hampered by our weak character, forgetfulness, instability and the many other attacks our yetzer (evil inclination) launches upon us. [We say to ourselves:] “The ground you have given me is infertile…” Woe is to the one who lacks patience with oneself! Such an individual will speedily despair from all self-work and growth, and even if he does not totally lose hope, he inevitably falls into sadness, and there is no greater damaging state of being to our service of Hashem than sadness." - Shlomo Wolbe, aka Wilhelm Wolbe

"If your heart isn't yet illumined be awake always, be a seeker of the heart, be at war continually with your carnal soul. But if your heart is already awakened, sleep peacefully, sleep in the arms of Love. If destiny comes to help you, love will come to meet you. A life without love isn't a life" - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"CLOSED ON SUNDAY I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business." - S. Truett Cathy

"We must be full reservoirs in order to let our water spill out without becoming empty, and we must possess the spirit with which we want them to be animated, for no one can give what he does not have." - Saint Vincent de Paul

"Electra weeping for the dead Orestes. If we love God while thinking that he does not exist, he will manifest his existence." - Simone Weil

"Whenever a human being, through the commission of a crime, has become exiled from good, he needs to be reintegrated with it through suffering. The suffering should be inflicted with the aim of bringing the soul to recognize freely some day that its infliction was just." - Simone Weil

"It is agreed that all sound which is the material of music is of three sorts. First is harmonica, which consists of vocal music; second is organica, which is formed from the breath; third is rhythmica, which receives its numbers from the beat of the fingers. For sound is produced either by the voice, coming through the throat; or by the breath, coming through the trumpet or tibia, for example; or by touch, as in the case of the cithara or anything else that gives a tuneful sound on being struck." - Isidore of Seville, fully Saint Isidore of Seville NULL

"The child awakens to a universe. The mind of the child to a world of meaning. Imagination to a world of beauty. Emotions to a world of intimacy. It takes a universe to make a child both in outer form and inner spirit. It takes a universe to educate a child. A universe to fulfill a child." - Thomas Berry

"It's all a question of story. We are in trouble just because we do not have a good story. We are between stories. The old story, the account of how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story." - Thomas Berry

"In these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotions towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion; which by reason of the different fancies, judgments, and passions of several men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different, that those which are used by one man, are for the most part ridiculous to another." - Thomas Hobbes

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." - Thomas Jefferson

"When the absolute Reality is known, it is seen to be without any individual selves, and devoid of any objective forms; All past [mental and physical] actions which lead to hell are instantly wiped away. After the Awakening, there is only vast Emptiness; this vast universe of forms ceases to exist [outside of one's Self]. Here, one sees neither sin nor bliss, neither loss nor gain. In the midst of the eternal Serenity, no questions arise; The dust of ignorance which has accumulated on the unpolished mirror for ages, Is now, and forever, cleared away in the vision of Truth." - Maximus of Tyre, fully Cassius Maximus Tyrius NULL

"Happiness is so nonsynonymous with joy or pleasure that it is not infrequently sought and felt in grief and deprivation." - Wilhelm von Humboldt, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt

"You may now ask how it can be true that this image of God, which is man’s soul, can be restored to His likeness here in this life; it would seem to be impossible. You must admit you are very far from such a position. If it were restored we would possess sound understanding, clear vision, and pure ardent Love of God and Spiritual things all of the time. Your thoughts, your reason and affections of the soul are so immersed in Earthly things that your have little perception of Spiritual things." - Walter Hilton

"It is the duty of the husband to earn money and fulfill the needs of his wife. It is also his duty to keep her happy and satisfied. He should protect her and fulfill all her demands." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

"I had forgotten how much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

"Whenever logical processes of thought are employed— that is, whenever thought for a time runs along an accepted groove— there is an opportunity for the machine. Formal logic used to be a keen instrument in the hands of the teacher in his trying of students' souls. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine." - Vannevar Bush

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful." - Tripitaka or Tipitaka NULL

"Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. - What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another." - Tryon Edwards

"The hanging gate, of something like trelliswork, was propped on a pole, and he could see that the house was tiny and flimsy. He felt a little sorry for the occupants of such a place--and then asked himself who in this world had a temporary shelter." - Murasaki Shikibu, aka Lady Murasaki

"Excellent! This is real life, full of antinomies and bigger than logic. Without order, planning, predictability, central control, accountancy, instructions to the underlings, obedience, discipline—without these, nothing fruitful can happen, because everything disintegrates. And yet—without the magnanimity of disorder, the happy abandon, the entrepreneurship venturing into the unknown and incalculable, without the risk and the gamble, the creative imagination rushing in where bureaucratic angels fear to tread—without this, life is a mockery and a disgrace." - E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

"There is a Life Stream that flows to you, and this is a Stream of clarity, a Stream of wellness, a Stream of abundance - and in any moment, you are allowing it or not. What someone else does with the Stream, or not, does not have anything to do with how much of it will be left for you." - Ester and Jerry Hicks

"You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true." - Eugene Peterson

"If a man does not control his temper, it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim of his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior, let alone behavior for a priesthood holder." - Ezra Taft Benson

"Surely the preservation and enjoyment of the freedoms vouchsafed to us by the Constitution of the United States will require eternal vigilance even to the guarding of it with our lives… We must ever be on our guard against the unsound theories that would strike at our Constitutional freedoms. We must ever keep faith with our founding fathers by keeping faith with our Constitution. I trust that we all have faith in the Constitution of the United States, and that that faith is born of an assurance that this great document came into being through the inspiration of God to wise men, embodying as it does, eternal principles. This nation has a spiritual foundation which must be preserved at any cost of sweat and blood. May we recognize our debt and responsibility and be ever vigilant. The need for this eternal and constant vigilance is seen in some prophetic words of Daniel Webster, given in 1802: “Next to correct morals and watchful guardianship over the Constitution is the proper means for its support. No human advantage is indefensible. The fairest productions of man have in themselves or receive from accident a tendency to decay. Unless the Constitution be constantly fostered on the principles which created it, its excellency will fade; and it will feel, even in its infancy, the weakness and decrepitude of age. “Our form of government is superior to all others, inasmuch as it provides, in a fair and honorable manner for its own amendment. But it requires no gift or prophecy to foresee that this privilege may be seized on by demagogues, to introduce wild and destructive innovations. Under the gentle name of amendments, changes may be proposed which, if unresisted, will undermine the national compact, mar its fairest features, and reduce it finally to a dead letter. It abates nothing of the danger to say that alterations may be trifling and inconsiderable. If the Constitution be picked away by piecemeal, it is gone — and gone as effectually as if some military despot had grasped it at once, trampled it beneath his feet, and scattered its loose leaves in the wild winds.” If we are to keep faith with our Constitution, we must know it. Since it is the basis of our American way of life and our liberties every American should be familiar with it. We should read it periodically. How can people who are ignorant of the principles and guarantees of American government stand up in defense of it and our rights under the Constitution? The fundamentals and processes of free government should be known to every school boy — and his parents. No free people can ever survive if they are ignorant of and fail to understand the principles of free government!" - Ezra Taft Benson

"Think of the repentance that could take place with lives changed, marriages preserved, and homes strengthened, if pride did not keep us from confessing our sins and forsaking them." - Ezra Taft Benson

"Manifestly, an abyss separates the modernist form the traditionalist in their respective views of Torah. But an abyss, no matter how broad and deep, is a cleft in the earth's surface. the walls to either side will be of similar composition; they will be joined by a common ground below and may be even further united by a bridge from above. So, though the tradition and the modernist differ over Torah, both revere it, each after his own understanding and fashion; or to look to it for guidance and inspiration. And both stand on the same ground, are made of the same stuff, and surmount their disagreements in arches of shared purpose." - Milton Steinberg

"Yet it cannot be denied that faith is mere feeling. It has something like a cognitive content, and the existence of rival parties- scholastics and mystics- in the history shows that idea is a vital element in religion. Apart from this, religion on its doctrinal side, as defined by professor Whitehead, is ' a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended'. Now, since the transformation and guidance of man's inner and outer life is the essential aim of religion, it is obvious that the general truths that it embodies must not remain unsettled." - Mohamed Iqbal or Sir Muhammad Iqbal, aka Allama Iqbal

"Great men are not the mere products of the times in which they live, the epitome of their age, the creations of those formative currents of thought that are traversing the masses. Great men are the gifts of kind heaven to our poor world; instruments by which the Highest One works out His designs; light-radiators to give guidance and blessing to the travellers of time. Though far above us, they are felt to be our brothers; and their elevation shows us what vast possibilities are wrapped up in our common humanity. They beckon us up the gleaming heights to whose summits they have climbed. Their deeds are the woof of this world's history." - Moses Harvey

"Man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct . The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal." - Nikola Tesla

"This is the first nation that organized government on the basis of universal liberty with a free Church and a free State. This meant much at the time; it means much now and will continue to be the beacon of light and guidance for ourselves and of other nations. All that is good and practical and wise in the new developments can best be worked out under our form of government without destroying any of the basic principles upon which it rests." - Oscar S. Straus, fully Oscar Solomon Straus

"Wise guidance never violates people's Free Will. A superior who demands obedience of his subordinates should show respect for their capacity to understand, and also for their Innate Right to their own Free Will." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength. " - Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

"There is no "scientific worldview" just as there is no uniform enterprise "science"- except in the minds of metaphysicians, school masters, and scientists blinded by the achievements of their own particular niche... There is no objective principle that could direct us away from the supermarket "religion" or the supermarket "art" toward the more modern and much more expensive supermarket "science." Besides, the search for such guidance would be in conflict with the idea of individual responsibility which allegedly is an important ingredient of a "rational" or scientific age." - Paul Feyerabend, fully Paul Karl Feyerabend

"Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. . . True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors… He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven… something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

"If you can presume that a child is competent to make a decision, you still want that child to have parental guidance whenever possible. But realistically, we know that in many cases that is not possible. I believe in parental notification. I think there are exceptions. There are situations in which the family is so dysfunctional that notification is not appropriate. In general, I think families should be part of helping their children through this." - Hillary Rodham Clinton