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

Julian of Norwich NULL

This is the reason why we have no ease of heart or soul, for we are seeking our rest in trivial things which cannot satisfy... He [alone] is true rest... Nothing less will satisfy us.

Heart | Nothing | Reason | Rest | Soul | Will |

Barrett McGurn

The world’s inability to achieve a unity of thought and to end spiritual divisions is the real reason society is so deeply unhappy, so poor in ideas and enthusiasm, and so lacking in shared spiritual concepts which are its own inner joy, nobility and strength.

Enthusiasm | Ideas | Joy | Nobility | Reason | Society | Strength | Thought | Unity | World | Society | Thought |

John Locke

One great Reason why many Children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they found their Curiosity baulk’d and their Enquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and Respect and their Questions answered, as they should, to their Satisfaction, I doubt not but they would have taken more Pleasure in Learning and improving their Knowledge, wherein there would be still Newness and Variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same Play and Playthings.

Children | Curiosity | Doubt | Kindness | Knowledge | Learning | Play | Pleasure | Reason | Respect | Time | Respect |

Joseph de Maistre, fully Joseph-Marie, comte de Maistre

If each man relies on his individual reason for his religious beliefs, the result will be anarchy of belief or the annihilation of religious sovereignty.

Anarchy | Belief | Individual | Man | Reason | Will |

Robert S. Mendelsohn

The reason doctors are so dangerous is that they believe in what they are doing.

Reason |

Abraham Lincoln

Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance, upon faith and you will live and die a better man.

Balance | Better | Faith | Man | Reason | Will |

James E. Miller, Jr.

The roots of reason are embedded in feelings – feelings that have formed and accumulated and developed over a lifetime of personality-shaping. These feelings are not a source of weakness but a resource of strength. They are not there for occasional using but are inescapable. To know what we think, we must know how we feel. It is feeling that shapes belief and forms opinion.

Belief | Feelings | Opinion | Personality | Reason | Strength | Weakness |

Abraham Lincoln

The struggle of today is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.

Future | Struggle |

Abraham Lincoln

`Tis not without reason that [Man] seeks out and is willing to join in Society with others who are already united or have a mind to unite for the mutual Preservation of their Lives, Liberties and Estates, which I call by the general Name, Property. The great and chief end, therefore, of Men’s uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of Property.

Government | Man | Men | Mind | Property | Reason | Society | Society |

Charles Edward Merriam

The future belongs to those who fuse intelligence with faith, and who with courage and determination grope their way forward from chance to choice, from blind adaptation to creative evolution.

Chance | Choice | Courage | Determination | Evolution | Faith | Future | Intelligence |

George Sawyer Pettee

The basic function of a myth is always to govern present action towards future hopes.

Action | Future | Myth | Present | Govern |

William Penn

Love grows, lust wastes by enjoyment, and the reason is, that one springs from a union of souls, and the other from an union of sense.

Enjoyment | Love | Lust | Reason | Sense |

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

In the end, we must always return to our beliefs. From the mundane to the mystical, they inform us about reality and they shape our future lives. And if the ultimate reality remains a mystery, so much the better, for it is the questions that give us meaning, that drive us forward and fill us with transcendent awe.

Awe | Better | Future | Meaning | Mystery | Mystical | Reality |

J. P. Morgan, fully John Pierpont Morgan

A man always has two reason for the things he does – a good one and the real one.

Good | Man | Reason |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Future | Past | Present |

Fritz A. Rothschild

Eternity is another word for unity. In it, past and future are not apart; here is everywhere, and now goes on forever. The opposite of eternity is diffusion not time. Eternity does not begin when time is at its end. Time is eternity broken into space, like a ray of light refracted in the water… unity is a task, not a condition. The world lies in strife, in discord, in divergence. Unity is beyond not within reality.

Eternity | Future | Light | Past | Reality | Space | Time | Unity | World |