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

Ernest Shurtleff Holmes

I do not believe that God has imposed suffering upon anyone to punish them or to teach them a lesson.

Che Guevara, fully Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Far more important than a good remuneration is the pride of serving one's neighbor.

Heart | Truth | Will |

Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

We may now give the following more precise expression to our chief law of biogeny:— The evolution of the foetus (or ontogenesis) is a condensed and abbreviated recapitulation of the evolution of the stem (orphylogenesis); and this recapitulation is the more complete in proportion as the original development (orpalingenesis) is preserved by a constant heredity; on the other hand, it becomes less complete in proportion as a varying adaptation to new conditions increases the disturbing factors in the development (or cenogenesis).

Life | Life | Mind | Value |

Ernst Haeckel, full name Ernst Heinrich Phillip August Haeckel

Yet it is an astonishing fact that the science of the evolution of man does not even yet form part of the scheme of general education. In fact, educated people even in our day are for the most part quite ignorant of the important truths and remarkable phenomena which anthropogeny teaches us.

Light | Man | Understand |

E. F. Schumacher, fully Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher

If human vices such as greed and envy are systematically cultivated, the inevitable result is nothing less than a collapse of intelligence. A man driven by greed or envy loses the power of seeing things as they really are, of seeing things in their roundness and wholeness, and his very successes become failures. If whole societies become infected by these vices, they may indeed achieve astonishing things but they become increasingly incapable of solving the most elementary problems of everyday existence.

Aid | Will |

Erving Goffman

Knowing that his audiences are capable of forming bad impressions of him, the individual may come to feel ashamed of a well-intentioned honest act merely because the context of its performance provides false impressions that are bad. Feeling this unwarranted shame, he may feel that his feelings can be seen; feeling that he is thus seen, he may feel that his appearance confirms these false conclusions concerning him. He may then add to the precariousness of his position by engaging in just those defensive maneuvers that he would employ were he really guilty. In this way it is possible for all of us to become fleetingly for ourselves the worst person we can imagine that others might imagine us to be.

Alienation | Experience | Individual | Self |

Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

It seems plain and self-evident, yet it needs to be said: the isolated knowledge obtained by a group of specialists in a narrow field has in itself no value whatsoever, but only in its synthesis with all the rest of knowledge and only inasmuch as it really contributes in this synthesis toward answering the demand, "Who are we?"

Future |

Erwin Schrödinger, fully Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger

Multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind.

Art | Consolation | Life | Life | Light | Nothing | Speech | Work | World | Writing | Art |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

It is so easy to make the finding of the path so much more complicated than it really needs to be because from within you know if you have been willing to tune yourself to feeling good, no matter what, so that that's what matters most to you...then in your natural quest for joy you'll just keep being on your path...your path unfolds.

Attention | Example | Practice | Will | Value |

Estonian Proverbs

Who wants will get.

Teach | Wants |

Ester and Jerry Hicks

You are on the leading edge of thought, taking thought beyond that which it has been before.

Attention | World |

Eugene Peterson

Have no fear about doing so, for we have a “warts-and-all” religion.

Cause | Children | Family | God | Grace | Mind | God | Learn |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

Speaking on the near skepticism of the study of the history of philosophy:

Criticism | Distinguish | Doubt | Effort | Existence | Faith | God | Mind | Modesty | Need | Question | Reason | Truth | God | Afraid |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

I distinguish three sorts of signs: 1. Accidental signs, or the objects which particular circumstances have connected with some of our ideas, so as to render the one proper to revive the other. 2. Natural signs, or the cries which nature has established to express the passions of joy, of fear, or of grief, 3. Instituted signs, or those which we have chosen ourselves, and bear only an arbitrary relation to our ideas.

Distinction | Distinguish | Experience | Impression | Play | Rest |

Eudora Welty

I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.

Character | Good | Pleasure | Speech | Thought | World | Think | Thought |

Eugene Peterson

My security comes from who God is, not from how I feel. Discipleship is a decision to live by what I know about God, not by what I feel about him or myself or my neighbors.

Immortality | Mortal | People |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

It is easy to distinguish two ideas absolutely simple; but in proportion as they become more complex, the difficulties increase. Then as our notions resemble each other in more respects, there is reason to fear lest we take many of them for one only, or at least that we do not distinguish them as much as we might. This frequently happens in. metaphysics and morals. The subject which we have actually in hand, is a very sensible proof of the difficulties that are to be surmounted. On these occasions we cannot be too cautious in pointing out even the minutest differences.

Imagination | Present |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Child labor must be abolished by the working class.

Better | Comfort | Culture | Day | Health | Labor |

Eugene V. Debs, fully Eugene Victor Debs

Socialism is very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves.

Right |