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

Alan Cohen

Adversity is our dear friend. It is the driving force that pushes us out of our comfortable nest and forces us to learn to fly on our own. We can really welcome adversity as a gift. Without it our growth is very slow.

Adversity | Force | Friend | Growth | Learn |

Allan Bloom, fully Allan David Bloom

Education is the taming or domestication of the soul's raw passions - not suppressing them or excising them, which would deprive the soul of its energy - but forming and informing them as art.

Art | Education | Energy | Soul |

Alexis Carrel

Prayer is not only worship; it is also an invisible emanation of man’s worshipping spirit - the most powerful form of energy that one can generate. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. It results can be measured in terms of increased physical buoyancy, greater intellectual vigor, moral stamina, and a deeper understanding of the realities underlying human relationships. If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered.

Body | Energy | Habit | Influence | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Prayer | Spirit | Understanding | Will | Worship |

Alfred North Whitehead

The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.

Force | Justification |

Alfred North Whitehead

Evil is the brute motive force of fragmentary purpose, disregarding the eternal vision. Evil is overruling, retarding, hurting. The power of God is the worship He inspires. The worship of God is not a rule of safety – it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.

Adventure | Death | Eternal | Evil | Force | God | Hope | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Religion | Rule | Spirit | Vision | Worship | God |

Anthony "Tony" Robbins

The strongest force in the universe is a human being living consistently with his identity.

Force | Universe |

Arthur W Osborn

The most potent force in the world is an idea which, when organized into a body of concepts, becomes a culture and way of life. Concepts are psychological lenses focusing our experiences. Our physical eyes bring their reports but our conceptual lenses interpret them. If we would “know ourselves” it is a paramount necessity that we should examine critically and impartially our conceptual heritage and endeavor to discover why we accept or reject it.

Body | Culture | Force | Life | Life | Necessity | World |

Arthur Schopenhauer

If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, an time and energy limited.

Books | Energy | Good | Life | Life | Man | Time | Wants |

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield

No conjunction can possibly occur, however fearful, however tremendous it may appear, from which a man by his own energy may not extricate himself.

Energy | Man |

Bernard Bosanquet

Nothing gives such force in getting rid of evil as this belief that the good is the only reality.

Belief | Evil | Force | Good | Nothing | Reality |

Blaise Pascal

Force without justice is tyrannical; justice without force is impotent.

Force | Justice |

Blaise Pascal

Our imagination so magnifies this present existence, by the power of continual reflection on it, and so attenuates eternity, by not thinking of it at all, that we reduce an eternity; to nothingness, and expand a mere nothing to an eternity; and this habit is so inveterately rooted in us that all the force of reason cannot induce us to lay it aside.

Eternity | Existence | Force | Habit | Imagination | Nothing | Power | Present | Reason | Reflection | Thinking |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'

Argument | Belief | Education | Faith | Force | Reason | Will | Think |

Blaise Pascal

Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary.

Desire | Force |

Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Children learn at their own pace, and it is a mistake to try to force them. The great incentive to effort, all through life, is experience of success after initial difficulties. The difficulties must not be so great as to cause discouragement, or so small as not to stimulate effort. From birth to death, this is a fundamental principle. It is by what we do ourselves that we learn.

Birth | Cause | Children | Death | Effort | Experience | Force | Life | Life | Mistake | Success | Learn |

Charles Caleb Colton

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.

Earnestness | Energy | God |

Charles Caleb Colton

We should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves; and we should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God.

Earnestness | Energy | God |

Blanche DeVries Bernard

The first and last lesson of Yoga is the attitude of mind and heart. The aim of Yoga is to unite mind, body, spirit. The reward of yoga practice is the conversion of physical energy into mind power. The practices give a definite sense of control and raise the levels of consciousness awareness. These practices are not to be done competitively, to exhibit to one's friends, to expand the ego. While each of us, according to our temperament, must find the best mental approach, it should be one of self-surrender. Quiet, but joyful. Concentrated. Never strained. Outer control of the body is a means of regulating the inner functioning.

Awareness | Body | Consciousness | Control | Ego | Energy | Heart | Lesson | Means | Mind | Power | Practice | Quiet | Reward | Self | Sense | Spirit | Surrender |