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

Moses de León, known in Hebrew as Moshe ben Shem-Tov NULL

The purpose of the soul entering this body is to display her powers and actions in this world, for she needs an instrument. By descending to this world, she increases the flow of her power to guide the human being through the world. Thereby she perfects herself above and below, attaining a higher state by being fulfilled in all dimensions. If she is not fulfilled both above and below, she is not complete. Before descending to this world, the soul is emanated from the mystery of the highest level. While in this world, she is completed and fulfilled by this lower world. Departing this world, she is filled with the fullness of all the worlds, the world above and the world below. At first, before descending to this world, the soul is imperfect; she is lacking something. By descending to this world, she is perfected in every dimension.

Body | Display | Mystery | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Soul | World |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.

Duty | Faith | Hope | Mercy | Moderation | Public | Righteousness | Moderation | Privilege |

Morris West, fully Morris Langlo West

There are a few of us — madmen all! — who are in love with knowing, who would sell the last shirt from our backs for one small truth, one tiny star-fire to light up the murk and mystery of what we call our life… We may go blind before we see it, that's the haunting... No man — prince, peasant, pope, — has all the light, who says else is a mountebank. I claim no private lien on truth, only a liberty to seek it, prove it in debate, and to be wrong a thousand times to reach a single rightness. It is that liberty they fear. They want us to be driven to God like sheep, not running to him like lovers, shouting joy!

God | Liberty | Light | Love | Man | Mystery | Wrong | God |

Nachman of Breslov, aka Reb Nachman Breslover or Bratslav, Nachman from Uman NULL

You need to greatly encourage yourself in His service as much as you can, even if you are the way you are, you should rely on His abundantly great mercy which is beyond limit, for certainly he will not forsake you, no matter how badly you’ve acted. The past doesn’t exist. The main thing is that from now on you honestly resolve not to do it again.

Mercy | Need | Past | Service | Will |

Nadine Gordimer

What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there's another force from inside battling to make us something else.

Force | Life | Life | Mystery | Purpose | Purpose |

Mustapha Mahmoud

Do you know What does it mean that God exists? Means that our concerns are melting in an atmosphere of mercy and forgiveness, Forgiving Most Merciful .. Not our Lord say to us (with the lining) and narrow the vagina comes with it and in what I send a human to check on these species. Because God .. One .. There will not be in existence another god will not invalidate the promise ourselves we split the parties and will not and will not between loyalty and loyalty to the right and left and fawn fawn of the East and the West and pleaded for the rich and powerful slumped on the doorstep .. Each has strengths and each has a rich and all the knowledge he has and all that we aspire to in his hands .. And escape from it but not to him.

Existence | God | Knowledge | Lord | Loyalty | Loyalty | Means | Mercy | Promise | Right | Will | God |

Mustapha Mahmoud

Do you know? What does it mean that God exists? Means that justice and mercy is found and forgiveness exist. Meant to reassure the heart and soul and comfortable living heart and removes the right to be concerned and continued to his companions. Meaning... Tears will not go in vain and will not go without the fruit of patience and will not be good for nothing and will not pass the evil unchecked will not get away with crime without punishment. Means that the vineyard is to govern the existence and is not a stingy .. It is not printed decent take away what gives .. If God gave us life, he can not rob to death .. There can be negatively death to life .. But it is a move out to another life after death, then life again after the Baath and then to the mystic's in heaven forever.

Crime | Death | Evil | Existence | Forgiveness | God | Good | Heart | Heaven | Justice | Life | Life | Means | Mercy | Nothing | Patience | Right | Soul | Tears | Will | Forgiveness | God | Govern |

Nahmanides, aka Rabbi Moses ben Naḥman Girondi, Bonastruc ça Porta and by his acronym RaMBaN NULL

Every glory and wonder, every deep mystery and all beautiful wisdom are hidden in the Torah, sealed up in her treasures.

Glory | Mystery | Wisdom |

Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.

Mercy | Will | World |

Nicolas Rowe

Think not the good, The gentle deeds of mercy thou hast done, Shall die forgotten all; the poor, the prisoner, The fatherless, the friendless, and the widow, Who daily owe the bounty of thy hand, Shall cry to Heaven, and pull a blessing on thee.

Deeds | Mercy | Deeds |

Nikola Tesla

While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.

Barbarism | Better | Cause | Devotion | Earth | Energy | Faith | Ideals | Mercy | Understanding | War | Will | World |

Nikola Tesla

How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate... [As a youth] I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind.

Ideas | Imagination | Life | Life | Mystery |

Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

Be innocent, not knowledgeable. Be ignorant. It is better, because in your ignorance you accept the mystery of life. Life cannot be explained. All explanations are very tiny, small, rigid; and life is so vast, so immense — it cannot be contained in any explanation. Life is there to be lived. Life has no question-mark; it is a mystery, there is no explanation. And it is good that there is none: it would be a great misfortune if there were an explanation. If there were an answer that could satisfy you, just think how flat things would become, how boring, how monotonous — because no answer can answer your questions. Life remains an adventure, it remains a constant search. Searching, one day you come to a point where you understand that you are wasting your energies in searching. The same energies can be put to celebration. You can enjoy.

Day | Good | Ignorance | Life | Life | Misfortune | Mystery | Misfortune | Think | Understand |

Paracelsus, aka 'Paracelsus the Great', born Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim NULL

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design?

Mystery | Understand |

Paul Brunton, born Hermann Hirsch, wrote under various pseudonyms including Brunton Paul, Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte

In the heart's deepest place, where the burden of ego is dropped and the mystery of soul is penetrated, a man finds the consciousness there not different in any way from what all other men may find. The mutuality of the human race is thus revealed as existing only on a plane where its humanness is transcended. This is why all attempts to express it in political and economic terms, no less than the theosophic attempts to form a universal brotherhood, being premature, must be also artificial. This is why they failed.

Consciousness | Ego | Human race | Man | Men | Mystery | Race | Soul |

Paul Elmer More

What saved me from moral and emotional paralysis in this pseudo-philosophy was, I think, a deep-seated interest in humanity. I could not reason myself into believing that men are only machines; I could not smother in logic the sense of mystery that broods upon the world, not find any place in the network of blind chance and fate for the human will. What is the nature of this thing we call life, this irrational power which by its own initiative expands into endless activities, and finally creates for itself a conscious soul of suffering and joy?

Chance | Fate | Initiative | Logic | Men | Mystery | Nature | Power | Reason | Sense | Soul | Suffering | Fate |

Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich

In the creative vision of God the individual is present as a whole in his essential being and inner teleos and at the same time in the infinity of the special moments of his life process. Of course this is said symbolically, since we are unable to have a perception of or even an imagination of that which belongs to the divine life. The mystery of being beyond essence and existence is hidden in the mystery of the creativity of the divine life.

Creativity | Existence | God | Imagination | Individual | Life | Life | Mystery | Perception | Present | Time | Vision | God |

Pelagius NULL

Doubts are the foundation stones for a firm and robust faith. You will realise that doctrines are inventions of the human mind, as it tries to penetrate the mystery of God. You will realise that Scripture itself is the work of human minds....It is not what you believe that matters; it is how you respond with your heart and your actions. It is not just believing in Christ that matters; it is becoming like him....Jesus did not ask people to accept high-flown doctrines. In fact, he did not ask them to believe anything. Instead, he asked them to enter a relationship with God....Do not let your mind be seduced by theological speculation.

Heart | Mind | Mystery | People | Relationship | Scripture | Will | Work |