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

Tom Hayden, fully Thomas Emmet "Tom" Hayden

The issue of civil rights was too much for the establishment to handle. One of the chapters of history that's least studied by historians is the 300 to 500 riots in the U.S. between 1965 and 1970.

Experience | Hunger |

Timothy Leary, fully Timothy Francis Leary

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is ostensibly a book describing the experiences to be expected at the moment of death, during an intermediate phase lasting forty-nine (seven times seven) days, and during rebirth into another bodily frame. This however is merely the exoteric framework which the Tibetan Buddhists used to cloak their mystical teachings. ... The esoteric meaning, as it has been interpreted in this manual, is that it is death and rebirth of the ego that is described, not of the body. Lama Govinda indicates this clearly in his introduction when he writes: "It is a book for the living as well as the dying." The book's esoteric meaning is often concealed beneath many layers of symbolism. It was not intended for general reading. It was designed to be understood only by one who was to be initiated personally by a guru into the Buddhist mystical doctrines, into the pre-mortem-death-rebirth experience. These doctrines have been kept a closely guarded secret for many centuries, for fear that naive or careless application would do harm.

Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose |

William Shakespeare

But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I praised, and mine that I was proud on--mine so much that I myself was to myself not mine, valuing of her--why she, O, she is fall'n Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea hyth drops too few to wash her clean again, and salt too little which may season give to her foul tainted flesh! Sonnet 39

Men | Purpose | Purpose |

William James

If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. How much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.

Effort | Heart | Purpose | Purpose |

William Godwin

Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

Age | Hunger | Mercy | Power | Prudence | Prudence | Receive | Revenge | Will | Victim |

William James

The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.

Belief | Existence | Life | Life | Mind | Object | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Sense | Sentiment |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Without dispositions (bhavas) there would be no subtle body (linga), and without the subtle body there would be no cessation of dispositions. Evolution, therefore, proceeds in two ways, the elemental and the intellectual.

Absolute | Body | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Self |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

From dispassion (vairagya) there is absorption into Nature (prakriti); transmigration results from passionate attachment (rajas); from power there is non-obstruction, and from the reverse, the contrary.

Body | Nature | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Self |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Nature by herself binds herself by seven modes, and by means of one mode (knowledge), releases herself for the sake of the Self.

Means | Purpose | Purpose |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

The internal instrument is threefold. The external organs, which exhibit objects to these three, are tenfold. The external organs function in the present, and the internal instrument at all times.

Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Self |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

Knowledge | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Wise |

Ban Zhao, courtesy name Huiban

If husband and wife have the habit of staying together, never leaving one another, and following each other around within the limited space of their own rooms, then they will lust after and take liberties with one another. From such action improper language will arise between the two This kind of discussion may lead co licentiousness. But of licentiousness will be born a heart of disrespect to the husband. Such a result comes from not knowing that one should stay in one's proper place.

Authority | Conduct | Control | Husband | Men | Nothing | Order | Purpose | Purpose | Relationship | Wife |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

The effect subsists, for that which is non-existent cannot be brought into existence, and effects come from appropriate causes. Everything is not by every means possible, as capable causes produce only that which they can and the effect is of the same nature as the cause.

Purpose | Purpose |

Elihu Root

Secretary of War Stanton used to get out of patience with Lincoln because he was all the time pardoning men who ought to be shot.

Effort | Men | Mob | Occupation | Organization | Past | Power | Principles | Purpose | Purpose | Success | Work |

Albert Einstein

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion.

Nature | Purpose | Purpose |

Albert Einstein

If you ask for the purpose or goal of society as a whole or of an individual taken as a whole the question loses its meaning. This is, of course, even more so if you ask the purpose or meaning of nature in general. For in those cases it seems quite arbitrary if not unreasonable to assume somebody whose desires are connected with the happenings.

Action | Consequences | Desire | Earnestness | Fulfillment | Individual | Life | Life | Mankind | Opinion | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Struggle |

Albert Einstein

In responding to this poignant cry for help, Einstein offered no easy solace, and this very fact must have heartened the student and lightened the lonely burden of his doubts. Here is Einstein's response. It was written in English and sent from Princeton on 3 December 1950, within days of receiving the letter:

Individual | Meaning | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Society | Society |

William Shakespeare

Since I was man, such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry th' affliction nor the fear.

Man | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Will | World | Think |

William Shakespeare

See here, my friends and loving countrymen: this token serveth for a flag of truce betwixt ourselves and all our followers.

Design | Purpose | Purpose | Wise |