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

Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch

It is a fundamental principle that no person can entirely free himself from taking the people in his environment into consideration. When doing something in the presence of others, it is impossible not to think about how other people will view what you are doing... Any good act you do will be much purer if others are not aware of you.

Character | Consideration | Good | People | Will | Think |

Harry Emerson Fosdick

The search for truth is, as it always has been, the noblest expression of the human spirit. Man's insatiable desire for knowledge about himself, about his environment and the forces by which he is surrounded, gives life its meaning and purpose, and clothes it with final dignity... And yet we know, deep in our hearts, that knowledge is not enough... Unless we can anchor our knowledge to moral purposes, the ultimate result will be dust and ashes - dust and ashes that will bury the hopes and monuments of men beyond recovery.

Character | Desire | Dignity | Enough | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Men | Purpose | Purpose | Search | Spirit | Truth | Will |

Matthew Henson. fully Matthew Alexander "Matt" Henson

There can be no conquest to the man who dwells in the narrow and small environment of a groveling life, and there can be no vision to the man the horizon of whose vision is limited by the bounds of self. But the great things of the world, the great accomplishments of the world, have been achieved by men who had high ideals and who have received great visions. The path is not easy, the climbing is rugged and hard, but the glory at the end is worthwhile.

Character | Conquest | Glory | Ideals | Life | Life | Man | Men | Self | Vision | World |

Lynn Hill, aka Lynn Hill-Raffa

The purpose of my existence as I climb is to adapt my personal dimensions to the environment around me at each moment. I become an active player sharing some of the responsibility for my own destiny, achieving a heightened sense of awareness and seeing the direct result of my efforts; either I fall or I reach the top. But the meaning does not come from conquering the rock. Purpose comes from moving in harmony with nature, rather than destroying it or altering it for my immediate satisfaction. What gives life meaning is the fulfillment of directing energy in a way that brings a higher order to, and harmony with, the environment I live in... The ultimate meaning of our lives is relative to how much we have given to others. The ultimate meaning of our lives is connected with death... I would like to know that I have inspired people to go beyond self-limiting stereotypes to experience and nurture the true richness of their passions.

Awareness | Character | Death | Destiny | Energy | Existence | Experience | Fulfillment | Harmony | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | Order | People | Purpose | Purpose | Responsibility | Self | Sense | Awareness |

Edmund Leach, fully Sir Edmund Ronald Leach

Science offers us complete mastery over our environment and our own destiny, yet instead of rejoicing we feel deeply afraid. Why should this be?

Character | Destiny | Science |

Gregory Bateson

Any living thing which triumphs in the struggle against its environment destroys itself.

Struggle | Wisdom |

Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson

The tools of the mind become burdens when the environment which made them necessary no longer exists.

Mind | Wisdom |

Russell Baker. fully Russell Wayne Baker

We live in an environment whose principal product is garbage. The shined shoe in such a society is a hypocritical statement because it promotes the lie that we can thrive on garbage without being dirtied by it.

Society | Wisdom | Society |

Mark Caine

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.

Success | Wisdom |

James Herbert Case, Jr.

Peace is not the elimination of the causes of war. Rather it is a mastery of great human forces and the creation of an environment in which human aims may be pursued constructively.

Aims | Peace | War | 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 |

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 |

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 |

Lyall Watson

Perception is based, to a very large extent, on conceptual models - which are always inadequate, often incomplete and sometimes profoundly wrong. This complex situation arose because signals from the environment itself can be inadequate. The sort of information we need is not always available. And so, knowledge from the past, mixed up with assumptions about that knowledge which may be more or less appropriate, are used to augment information provided by the senses. Which means that our perception of any situation depends only partly on sensory signals being received at that time. And it is only a very short step from there, to perception which occurs in the absence of all immediate signals and has to be labeled “extrasensory”.

Absence | Knowledge | Means | Need | Past | Perception | Time | Wisdom | Wrong |

Tom Butler-Bowdon

Most people accept life scripts from the environment (family, society) into which they have grown. However, there is always the opportunity to write a new script.

Family | Life | Life | Opportunity | People | Society |

Albert Dondeyne

Technology has wiped out the frontiers that formerly separated men, countries and peoples. Man has become a citizen of the world. Thus, modern man finds himself in an environment without spiritual unity or religious homogeneity.

Man | Men | Technology | Unity | World |