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

Richard Hooker

Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is thy bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things do her homage, the very least as feeling her care; and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

Angels | Care | God | Harmony | Joy | Law | Men | Mother | Peace | Power | Wisdom | World |

Arianna Huffington, born Arianna Stassinopoulos

Man is going to evolve. It is our destiny. As in any evolution, parts of us will die in order for other parts to be born. Choosing at each moment the feelings, attitudes and values - acceptance, cooperation, caring, loving, forgiving - that will be the building blocks of the emerging reality is what it means to choose to evolve. At each moment we can choose to behave as natives of this new reality and co-creators in our evolution.

Acceptance | Cooperation | Destiny | Evolution | Feelings | Man | Means | Order | Reality | Will | Wisdom |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

The Perennial Philosophy... the metaphysic that recognizes a divine reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of immanent and transcendent Ground of being.

Knowledge | Man | Philosophy | Psychology | Reality | Soul | Wisdom | World |

Ta-chu Hui-Hai

When you stop thinking that things have a past or future, and that they come or go, then in the whole universe there won't be a single atom that is not your own treasure. All you have to do is look into your own mind; then the marvelous reality will manifest itself at all times. Don't search for the truth with your intellect. Don't search at all. The nature of the mind is intrinsically pure.

Future | Mind | Nature | Past | Reality | Search | Thinking | Truth | Universe | Will | Wisdom |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

We possess a hidden higher self, the spark of divinity within the soul, which reflects this transcendental reality in our lives. By fulfilling certain necessary conditions, such as making ourselves more loving and compassionate, we can clear away the mental and emotional static that separates us from this inner reality, enabling the higher self to assume a central, guiding role in our lives. This awakening - called enlightenment, deliverance, or salvation in the various traditions - is the goal or purpose of human life. When we achieve this complete transformation of consciousness, we awaken from our limited, often painful condition and reconnect with our true nature.

Awakening | Consciousness | Divinity | Enlightenment | Life | Life | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | Salvation | Self | Soul | Wisdom |

Firuz Kazemzadeh

The problem of our purpose is a religious problem... Our purpose is derived from faith and is imposed onto reality by our own souls. But faith and religious truth themselves are not absolute. They are relative. Thus the answers one gives to questions about the purpose of life must necessarily be relative to a time, a place, a tradition... To know and worship God means, in Baha’ullah’s words, to promote the unity of the human race and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men”... Someday there will be a global society in which humanity will realize its spiritual and moral potential... The destiny of mankind, actually, is the ultimate creation of the world civilization. It is only in the service of such a cause that I find the meaning and purpose of life.

Absolute | Cause | Civilization | Destiny | Faith | Global | God | Human race | Humanity | Life | Life | Love | Mankind | Meaning | Means | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Race | Reality | Service | Society | Spirit | Time | Tradition | Truth | Unity | Will | Wisdom | Words | World | Worship | Society | God |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and the common vulnerability of this planet.

Children | God | Reality | Time | Wisdom | God |

William James

The world of our consciousness consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner ‘state’ in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous - the cosmic times and spaces, for example - whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of the mind. Yet the cosmic objects, so far as the experience yields them, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point outwardly, while the inner state is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one.

Consciousness | Example | Existence | Experience | Mind | Reality | Thinking | Time | Wisdom | World | Think |

Herrick Johnson

God is merely tuning the soul as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation - preludes to the perfect harmony that shall flood the soul - forerunners of the perfected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Eternal | Glory | God | Harmony | Joy | Life | Life | Soul | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Psychic reality exists in its original oneness, and awaits man's advance to a level of consciousness where he no longer believes in the one part and denies the other, but recognizes both as constituent elements of one psyche.

Consciousness | Man | Oneness | Reality | Wisdom |

William James

That which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal.

Mystical | Reality | Wisdom | World |

R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

When the Copernican Revolution superseded the ancient Polemic world view, the earth took its rightful place as one planet among many. Man was no longer the center of the universe and though his self-image was deflated, he grew in maturity. In the same way, we must take our rightful place in nature - not as its self-centered and profligate "master" with the divine right of kings to exploit and despoil, but as one species living in harmony with the whole.

Earth | Exploit | Harmony | Man | Nature | Revolution | Right | Self | Universe | Wisdom | World |

Hans Küng

Self-realization is the meaning of life. We are here to realize ourselves in order to become true human beings. But I add from my own experience: My own self-realization must fail if it disregards the self-realization of others. My realization and other’s realizations are meaningful only if they are borne and determined by something that is more than we ourselves: Self-Realization rooted in the reality of God Himself.

Experience | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Order | Reality | Self | Self-realization | Wisdom | God |

Gottfried Leibniz, fully Gottfried Wilhalm von Leibniz, Baron von Leibnitz

Souls act according to the laws of final causes through appetitions, ends, and means. Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes or motions. And the two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are in harmony with one another.

Ends | Harmony | Means | Wisdom |

Aldo Leopold

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.

Conservation | Harmony | Land | Men | Wisdom |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life.

Life | Life | Reality | Wisdom |

Desmond MacCarthy, fully Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy

The whole of art is an appeal to a reality which is not without us but in our minds.

Art | Reality | Wisdom | Art |