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

Ethiopian Proverbs

What is taken for oneself is usually not a small piece.

Will |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

Hence arises a perception which represents them to us as distant and limited; and which consequently implies the idea of some extension.

Attention | Memory | Public |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

It frequently happens that the imagination produces even such effects within us, as might seem to proceed from present reflection. Though we may be greatly taken up with a particular idea, yet the objects which surround us, continue to solicit our senses; the perceptions they occasion, revive others with which they are connected; and these determine certain movements in our bodies.

Knowledge | Mind |

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

Without doubt it is natural to include that love long what we love so much.

Love | Man | Melancholy | Pain | Pleasure | Sense |

Eudora Welty

Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of what is ephemeral. It is by the ephemeral that our feeling is so strongly aroused for what endures, or strives to endure.

Good | Truth |

Eugene Peterson

Ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.

Experience | Friendship |

Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill

I am so far from being a pessimist... on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.

People | Will | World |

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 Pivert de Senancour

The man is perishable. It can, but perish in resistant, and if nothing we are booked, not do not that this is a justice!

Enjoyment | Love | Man |

Eudora Welty

She knew now to look slowly and carefully at a face; she was convinced that it was impossible to see it all at once.

Eugen Herrigel

Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft. The pupil follows out his intention with untiring industry. As though he had no higher aspirations he bows under his burden with a kind of obtuse devotion, only to discover in the course of years that forms which he perfectly masters no longer oppress but liberate. He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.

Will | Think |

Eugen Herrigel

Your question is already answered by the fact that I made you take a test. You have now reached a stage where teacher and pupil are no longer two persons, but one. You can separate from me any time you wish. Even if broad seas lie between us, I shall always be with you when you practice what you have learned. I need not ask you to keep up your regular practicing, not to discontinue it on any pretext whatsoever, and to let no day go by without your performing the ceremony, even without bow and arrow, or at least without having breathed properly. I need not ask you because I know that you can never give up this spiritual archery. Do not ever write to me about it, but send me photographs from time to time so that I can see how you draw the bow. Then I shall know everything I need to know.

Choice | Difficulty | Right | Will |

Eugene Peterson

Song and dance are the result of an excess energy. When we are normal we talk, when we are dying we whisper, but when there is more in us than we contain we sing. When we are healthy we walk, when we are decrepit we shuffle, but when we are beyond ourselves with vitality we dance.

Death | Neutrality | Will |

Ethiopian Proverbs

To one who knows no better, a small garden is a forest.

Man |

Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

And yet, let the nature of these perceptions be what it will, and let them be produced as they will, if we look amongst them for the idea of extension, for instance, of a line, of an angle, and any other figure, we shall find it in that repository very clearly and distinctly.

Abstract | Circumstances | Mind | Perception | Power | Think |

Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson

Every time our intellect thus succeeds in substituting some principles and causes of knowledge for knowledge itself, it is on the right road to wisdom. As a matter of fact, it has already found wisdom, at least in part, while awaiting the day when, fully aware of what the absolutely first principles and first causes truly are, it begins to see everything else in their light.

Man | Principles | Rest | Wise |

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

A willingness enemy s' attaches me to hold in a state of suspension and obstacles to me fooled by the things vague and the expectations evasive.

Consequences | Man | Regard | Respect | Will | Respect |

Étienne Pivert de Senancour

The man who loves the higher it gets, the more it is bound, it is more loved, more like it.

Man | Nothing |

Eudora Welty

Don't give anybody up. . . or leave anybody out. . . . There's room for everything, and time for everybody, if you take your day the way it comes along and try not to be much later than you can help.--Spoken by Jack to Gloria

Character | Life | Life | Right | Soul |