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

Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel

The basic formula of all sin is: frustrated or neglected love.

Love | Sin |

John Greenleaf Whittier

Hatred of cant and doubt of human creeds may well be felt; the unpardonable sin is to deny the word of God from within.

Doubt | God | Sin | God |

Alan Cohen

Our freedom depends on our willingness to see Perfection. The imperfection that we have been taught to see has led only to suffering... Perfection is not a standard to be achieved, but a truth to be acknowledged. It is not the difference between us and God, but the hallmark of our unity with Him. And the honoring of Perfection is not a sin of vanity, but the humble acceptance of our identity as offspring of the Eternal.

Acceptance | Eternal | Freedom | God | Imperfection | Perfection | Sin | Suffering | Truth | Unity |

Albert Camus

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another, and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Life | Life | Sin |

Amos Bronson Alcott

Every sin provides its punishment.

Punishment | Sin |

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, born Anne Spencer Morrow

There is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.

Change | Nature | Sin |

Author Unknown NULL

If you would keep young and happy, be good; live a high moral life; practice the principles of the brotherhood of man; send out good thoughts to all, and think evil of no man. This is in obedience to the great natural law; to live otherwise is to break this great Divine law. Other things being equal, it is the cleanest, purest minds that live long and are happy. The man who is growing and developing intellectually does not grow old like the man who has stopped advancing, but when ambition, aspirations and ideals halt, old age begins.

Age | Ambition | Brotherhood | Evil | Good | Happy | Ideals | Law | Life | Life | Man | Obedience | Old age | Practice | Principles | Old | Think |

Author Unknown NULL

No consenting soul can be made to sin, and so sin is inexcusable.

Sin | Soul |

Arthur W Osborn

The way of exoteric religion is to progressively replace egoism by submission to the will of God. Its four cardinal demands are faith, love, humility, and good deeds. In so far as they are complied with, they effectively bring a man towards Self-realization, even though he does not consciously envisage this. True, the Goal is not likely to be attained in this lifetime, but in God’s patience a lifetime is very little. Faith strengthens the intuitional conviction of the reality of God or the Self. Humility, its counterpart, weakens the belief in the ego and lessens the importance attached to it. Love strives to surrender the ego to God and its welfare to others. Good deeds deny egoism in practice and are alike the fruit and proof of love and humility.

Belief | Deeds | Ego | Faith | God | Good | Humility | Little | Love | Man | Patience | Practice | Reality | Religion | Self | Self-realization | Submission | Surrender | Will | Deeds | God |

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger

The sin of racial pride still represents the most basic challenge to the American conscience. We cannot dodge this challenge without renouncing our highest moral pretentions.

Challenge | Conscience | Pride | Sin |

Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda NULL

No sin is too big for God to pardon, and none is too small for habit to magnify.

God | Habit | Pardon | Sin | God |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

Whatever is found what is called a paternal government was found a State education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience [is] to commence tyranny in the nursery.

Education | Government | Obedience | Tyranny | Government |

Blaise Pascal

Our nature tempts us perpetually; criminal desire is often excited; but sin is not completed till reason consents.

Desire | Nature | Reason | Sin |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Opinion | Prison | Public | Respect | Submission | Tyranny | Respect |

Bonnell Thornton

True repentance consists in the heart being broken for sin and broken from sin. Some often repent, yet never reform; they resemble a man traveling in a dangerous path, who frequently starts and stops, but never turns back.

Heart | Man | Reform | Repentance | Sin |