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

Gary Snyder

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.

Earth | Ecstasy | History | Ignorance | Love | Magic | Work |

Gamaliel Bailey

There is nothing on earth worth being known but God and our own souls.

Earth | God | Nothing | Worth | God |

Gary Zukav

The decisions that you make and the actions that you take upon the earth are the means by which you evolve.

Earth | Means |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Nothing on earth consumes a man more completely than the passion of resentment.

Earth | Man | Passion |

Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron

It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke — that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls.

Earth | Good | Heaven | Innocence | Life | Life | Object | Praise | Universe |

George Gaylord Simpson

Virtually all biochemists agree that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter and that it would almost inevitably arise on sufficiently similar young planets elsewhere.

Earth | Life | Life |

Gilbert Keith "G.K." Chesteron

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Earth |

George William Russell

Seek on earth what you have found in heaven.

Earth |

George Marshall, fully George Catlett Marshall, Jr.

I need not tell you that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.

Difficulty | Earth | Man | Need | Peace | People | Public | World | Think |

Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

When we pay attention to nature's music, we find that everything on the Earth contributes to its harmony.

Attention | Earth |

Hans Küng

All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved.

Consciousness | Earth | Experience | Future |

H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells

Life begins perpetually. Gathered together at last under the leadership of man, the student-teacher of the universe... unified, disciplined, armed with the secret powers of the atom, and with knowledge as yet beyond dreaming, Life, forever dying to be born afresh, forever young and eager, will presently stand upon this earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars.

Earth | Knowledge | Will | Leadership |

Nicholas Black Elk, formally Heȟáka Sápa

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop.

Childhood | Earth | Life | Life | Man | Power | Religion | World |

Henry Beston, born Henry Beston Sheahan

Do no dishonor to the earth lest you dishonor the spirit of man.

Dishonor | Earth | Spirit |

Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

The Earth faces environmental problems right now that threaten the imminent destruction of civilization and the end of the planet as a livable world. Humanity cannot afford to waste its financial and emotional resources on endless, meaningless quarrels between each group and all others. there must be a sense of globalism in which the world unites to solve the real problems that face all groups alike.

Civilization | Earth | Humanity | Problems | Right | Sense | Waste | World |

Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith

Religion teaches us that our lives here on earth are to be used for transformation.

Earth |

Herman E. Daly

There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.

Business | Earth | Wrong | Business |

Henri Frédéric Amiel

Do not despise your situation; in it you must act, suffer, and conquer. From every point on earth we are equally near heaven and to the infinite.

Despise | Earth | Heaven |