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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

My body is that part of the world which my thoughts can alter. Even imaginary illnesses can become real ones. In the rest of the world my hypotheses cannot disturb the order of things.

Body | Order | Rest | Wisdom | World |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Volatility of words is carelessness in actions; words are the wings of actions.

Wisdom | Words |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.

Anger | Silence | Wisdom | Wise |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Meditation is like a river. It cannot be tamed. It flows and flows and overflows its banks. It is music without sound. It is the silence in which the observer ceases to be immediately he plunges in.

Meditation | Music | Silence | Sound | Wisdom |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

My body is that part of the world which can be altered by my thoughts. Even imaginary illnesses can become real. In the rest of the world my hypotheses cannot disturb the other of things.

Body | Rest | Wisdom | World |

Charles F. Kettering, fully Charles Franklin Kettering

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

Future | Rest | Will | Wisdom |

J. Martin Klotsche

Intelligence is derived from two words - inter and legere - inter meaning "between" and legere meaning "to choose." An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned "to choose between." He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.

Arrogance | Better | Compassion | Confidence | Cruelty | Evil | Fear | Forbearance | Gentleness | Good | Hate | Ignorance | Intelligence | Intolerance | Love | Meaning | Truth | Virtue | Virtue | Wisdom | Words |

Robert E. Lyon

Modern man seems to be afraid of silence. We are conditioned by radio and television on which every minute must be filled with talking, or some kind of sound. We are stimulated by the American philosophy of keeping on the move all the time - busy, busy, busy. This tends to make us shallow. A person's life can be deepened tremendously by periods of silence, used in the constructive ways of meditation and prayer. Great personalities have spent much time in the silence of life.

Life | Life | Man | Meditation | Philosophy | Prayer | Silence | Sound | Talking | Television | Time | Wisdom | Afraid |

Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL

Watch a man in times of ... adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.

Adversity | Heart | Man | Truth | Wisdom | Words |

William Matthews

Nothing inspires confidence in a business man sooner than punctuality, nor is there any habit which sooner saps his reputation than that of being always behind time.

Business | Confidence | Habit | Man | Nothing | Punctuality | Reputation | Time | Wisdom | Business |

John Locke

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

Ideas | Wisdom | Words | World |

Guy de Maupassant, fully Henri Rene Albert Guy de Maupassant

The great artists are those who impose their peculiar illusion on the rest of mankind.

Illusion | Mankind | Rest | Wisdom |

Alexander Maclaren

As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most pat in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard.

God | Joy | Little | Love | Silence | Soul | Truth | Wills | Wisdom | God |

F. D. Maurice, fully John Frederick Denison "F.D." Maurice

Acts are nothing except as they are fruits of a state, except as they indicate what the man is; words are nothing except as they express a mind or purpose.

Man | Mind | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom | Words |

Felix Neff

When a pump is frequently used, the water pours out at the first stroke, because it is high; but, if the pump has not been used for a long time, the water gets low, and when you want it you must pump a long while; and the water comes only after great efforts. It is so with prayer. If we are instant in prayer, every little circumstance awakens the disposition to pray, and desire and words are always ready; but, if we neglect prayer, it is difficult for us to pray, for the water in the well gets low.

Desire | Little | Neglect | Prayer | Time | Wisdom | Words | Circumstance |

Maurice Nicoll

We need to get rid of some false meanings that we give to the words eternal and eternity. The psychological idea connected with eternal life cannot be limited to the view that man is changed into another state at death, merely by the act of dying. It would be far more correct to say that it refers, first of all, to some change that man is capable of undergoing now, in this life, and one that is connected with the attainment of unity. The modern term psychology means literally the science of the soul. But in former times there actually existed a science of the soul based upon the idea that man is an imperfect state but capable of reaching a further state... No totality-act is possible; the will is separate from knowledge, the feeling from intellect.

Attainment | Change | Death | Eternal | Eternity | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Means | Need | Psychology | Science | Soul | Unity | Will | Wisdom | Words |

Youssou N’Dour

The meaning of life is to be found in our surroundings and in our relationships... Life is meaningful when we respect the best of tradition while still loving innovation... Life is fulfilling when we marry pride with tolerance, when our deeds and our words are nourished by hope and by realism, when the wisdom of the ages catches the passionate eye of youth. Life on this earth in our time is, above all, a parade of interdependent peoples, interdependent ideas, interdependent solutions. We are all artists of the possible - and dreamers of that which is just now beyond our reach, but may not be tomorrow.

Deeds | Earth | Hope | Ideas | Innovation | Interdependent | Life | Life | Meaning | Pride | Respect | Time | Tomorrow | Tradition | Wisdom | Words | Youth | Deeds | Respect |

Peter Minard

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws form the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. The exodus from slavery toward the possession of the Kingdom.

Absence | Noise | Order | Peace | Silence | Slavery | Wisdom |

Douglas Meador

A way to weigh words is to keep them in the heart until they are gentle and until the lips will speak them softly.

Heart | Will | Wisdom | Words |