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

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence to the fact.

Evidence | Giving | Man | Nothing | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The environment is everything that isn't me.

Wisdom |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Life consists not simply in what heredity and environment do to us but in what we make out of what they do to us.

Heredity | Life | Life | Wisdom |

George F Gilder

When I began to examine just how wealth is created, it seemed to me plain that it arises not from taking, but from giving. People get rich by giving rather than by taking, and this seemed to me to be a very important perception, because the reason for the crisis in capitalism today, it seems to me, is not its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character.

Capitalism | Character | Giving | Important | People | Perception | Reason | Wealth | Wisdom | Crisis |

J. B. S. Haldane, fully John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

We do not know, in most cases, how far social failure and success are due to heredity, and how far to environment. But environment is the easier of the two to improve.

Failure | Heredity | Success | Wisdom | Failure |

Elizabeth Klarer

In aging, the (one's) inner clock slows down while earth time remains constant. Your planet continues to move in three directions at the same time, giving to you your speed or flow of time, past, present and future. There is less time to do things as one grows older and time is speeded up because the living body processes are slowing down. Time is a wave-motion in a triple unity with light and gravity.

Body | Earth | Future | Giving | Light | Past | Present | Time | Unity | Wisdom |

Joel Kinagwi

Fulfillment in life comes from giving your whole life to others. The meaning of life is to serve those who are suffering.

Fulfillment | Giving | Life | Life | Meaning | Suffering | Wisdom |

Hamilton Wright Mabie

The germs of all truth lie in the soul, and when the ripe moment comes, the truth within answers to the fact without as the flower responds to the sun, giving it form for heat and color for light.

Giving | Light | Soul | Truth | Wisdom |

Compton Mackenzie, fully Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie

Take two workers in an organization. One limits his giving by wages he is paid. He insists on being paid instantly for what he does. That shows he is a man of limited imagination and intelligence. The other is a natural giver. His philosophy of life compels him to make himself useful. He knows that if he takes care of other people's problems they will be forced to take care of him to protect their own interests. The more a man gives of himself to his work, the more he will get out of it, both in wages and satisfaction.

Care | Giving | Imagination | Intelligence | Life | Life | Man | Organization | People | Philosophy | Problems | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Wynton Marsalis

On one level, life is the process of seeking out and enjoying experiences - from the transcendent to the tragic. Life has as cyclical pattern of movement and appreciation; even when you’re not doing anything, you’re probably in a situation you sought. On another level, life is the experience of the self’s interaction with the world. The self can be broken down into three main elements and their corresponding activities: first, the heart (knowing compassion, receiving and giving love); second, the intellect (acquiring and digesting information); third, the senses (acting and being acted upon). It is the soul, however, that focuses and inspires all three the soul gives us resilience -an essential quality since we constantly have to rebound from hardship... The meaning of life can’t be understood without first looking at the self and its interaction with the world. In effect, this amounts to examining the inner workings of the soul of the universe.

Appreciation | Compassion | Experience | Giving | Heart | Knowing | Life | Life | Love | Meaning | Resilience | Self | Soul | Universe | Wisdom | World | Intellect |

Michael Murphy

[There are] four destructive effects of religious and therapeutic disciplines: 1) A practice can reinforce limiting traits, preventing their removal or transformation. 2) A practice can support limiting beliefs, giving them greater power in the life of an individual or culture. 3) A practice can subvert balanced growth by emphasizing some virtues at the expense of others. 4) A practice can limit integral development when it focuses on partial though authentic experience of superordinary reality.

Culture | Experience | Giving | Growth | Individual | Life | Life | Power | Practice | Reality | Wisdom |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

In dealing with the environment we must learn now how to master nature but how to master ourselves, our institutions, and our technology.

Nature | Technology | Wisdom | Learn |

Rosa Caroline Praed, aka Mrs. Campbell Praed

A man does not entreat for love. It is the irresistible impulse towards each other of two souls, a union in which there is neither conscious giving nor receiving.

Giving | Impulse | Love | Man | Wisdom |

Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.

Giving | Man | Wisdom |