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

Aldous Leonard Huxley

If there is freedom... there is a spiritual Reality, which it is the final end and purpose of consciousness to know; then all life is in the nature of an intelligence test, and the higher the level of awareness and the greater the potentialities of the creature, the more searchingly difficult will be the questions asked.

Awareness | Character | Consciousness | Freedom | Intelligence | Life | Life | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Will | Awareness |

David Hume

The spirit of the people must frequently be roused, in order to curb the ambition of the court; and the dread of rousing this spirit must be employed to prevent that ambition. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as the liberty of the press; by which all the learning, wit, and genius of the nation, may be employed on the side of freedom, and every one be animated to its defense.

Ambition | Character | Defense | Dread | Freedom | Genius | Learning | Liberty | Nothing | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Wit | Ambition |

Jean Ingelow

A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.

Beauty | Blessedness | Character | Hunger | Life | Life | Beauty |

Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL

The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.

Cause | Character | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Wrong |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

I began to accept that the meaning of life, even the purpose of the pain that accompanies it, would be found not in the question I asked of life, but in the questions life asked of me.

Character | Life | Life | Meaning | Pain | Purpose | Purpose | Question |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Man’s final end, the purpose of his existence, is to love, know and be united with the immanent and transcendent God head. And this identification of self with spiritual not-self can be achieved only by “dying to” selfness and living to spirit.

Character | Existence | God | Love | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Self | Spirit | God |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The aim and purpose of human life is the unitive knowledge of God. Among the indispensable means to that end is right conduct, and by the degree and kind of virtue achieved, the degree of liberating knowledge may be assessed and its quality evaluated. In a word, the tree is known by its fruits; God is not mocked.

Character | Conduct | God | Indispensable | Knowledge | Life | Life | Means | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Virtue | Virtue | God |

Marwa Kisare, fully Zedekia Marwa Kisare

God is both the purpose (the why) and manner (the how) of my existence.

Character | Existence | God | Purpose | Purpose |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Character | Darkness | Existence | Light | Purpose | Purpose |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth that like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard... Even in time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. If we had no other purpose in life, it would be good enough to simply take care of them and goose them once in a while.

Care | Character | Enough | Focus | God | Good | Greed | Life | Life | People | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Truth |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

Your success and happiness lie in you. External conditions are the accidents of life. The great enduring realities are love and service. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy and your joy in you shall form an invincible host against difficulty.

Character | Difficulty | Happy | Intelligence | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Service | Success | Happiness |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it.

Character | Existence | Illusion | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | World |

John Locke

Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.

Anger | Character | Mind | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Revenge |

Stephen MacKenna

To have no set purpose in one's life is the harlotry of the will.

Character | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wisdom |

Alexander Maclaren

Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?

Character | Eternity | Hunger | Need | Possessions | Thought | Time | Trifles | Will | Thought |

Yosef Zev Leipowitz

We usually view praying due to suffering that the suffering comes because of external situations and hence we have to pray. But this is not correct. The purpose of the suffering was that we should pray. By pouring our hearts to the Almighty, we become closer to Him and the suffering is a tool for our elevation.

Character | Purpose | Purpose | Suffering |

Theodore T. Munger

There is no road to success but through a clear strong purpose. Nothing can take its place. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of every sort.

Attainment | Character | Culture | Nothing | Position | Purpose | Purpose | Success |

David O. McKay

Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best.

Capacity | Challenge | Character | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Will |