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 Y. Hurwitz

Many people are mistaken about how they can improve their situation. They think they will have peace of mind only when they have obtained everything they desire. But this is erroneous. Gratifying desires does not bring lasting satisfaction. The only path to achieve satisfaction is to stop desiring more things. As long as a person is unable to control his desiring, his problems will not be overcome... The only way to find real satisfaction in life is to stop desiring what is beyond your reach.

Character | Control | Desire | Life | Life | Mind | Peace | People | Problems | Will | Think |

Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla

Heaven and hell are states of mind. The kingdom of heaven is within you. You create your own heaven or hell. The anguish of a personal hell can serve to strengthen you if you will let it. Judgment day takes place every moment of your life.

Character | Day | Heaven | Hell | Judgment | Life | Life | Mind | Will |

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Genuine self-government is possible only in very small groups, societies on a national or super-national scale will always be ruled by oligarchical minorities, whose members come to power because they have a lust for power.

Character | Government | Lust | Power | Self | Will |

William James

Fear of life is one form or other is the great thing to exorcise; but it isn’t reason that will ever do it. Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift. I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.

Character | Enough | Fear | Impulse | Life | Life | Man | Reason | Suicide | Thought | Will | Thought |

William Jay

Though a good motive cannot sanctify a bad action, a bad motive will always vitiate a good action.

Action | Character | Good | Will |

Saint Jerome, aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymous, Hierom or Jerom NULL

Have something to do, so that the devil will always find you occupied.

Character | Devil | Will |

Gloria D. Karpinski

Anything unforgiven is held in the body, the emotions, the mind, and even the soul. Unreleased, it crystallizes, forming obstructions in the very pathways along which energy must flow. Given enough time to harden, it will result in sickness.

Body | Character | Emotions | Energy | Enough | Mind | Soul | Time | Will |

James Joll

The tragedy of all political action is that some problems have no solution; none of the alternatives are intellectually consistent or morally uncompromising; and whatever decision is taken will harm somebody.

Action | Character | Decision | Harm | Problems | Tragedy | Will |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Relationship means contact, communion. There cannot be communion where people are divided by ideas. A belief may gather a group of people around itself. Such a group will inevitably breed opposition and so form another group with a different belief. Ideas postpone direct relationship with the problem.

Belief | Character | Ideas | Means | Opposition | People | Relationship | Will |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Character | Dreams | Heart | Looks | Vision | Will |

Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz

A person’s first obligation is to work on having an orderly mind and to decide on what thoughts he will think about.

Character | Mind | Obligation | Will | Work | Think |

David Kimchi, aka Hebrew acronym as the RaDaK

He whose heart is closed will not be benefited by open eyes.

Character | Heart | Will |

BaMishol HaTzar. Kabak

You are rich, though you do not know it. You have wells of kindness within your heart. At times man will bless you more for a smile, a kindly glance, a gesture of forgiveness, than for treasures of gold.

Character | Forgiveness | Gold | Heart | Kindness | Man | Smile | Will |

Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz

The goal of overcoming the demand for gratifying desires is not to deny oneself pleasure, but to try to keep desires in a perspective that will allow us to overcome them because of a realization that our happiness is not dependent on them.

Character | Pleasure | Will | Happiness |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

The only moral virtue of war is that it compels the capitalist system to look itself in the face and admit it is a fraud. It compels the present society to admit that it has no morals it will not sacrifice for gain.

Character | Fraud | Present | Sacrifice | Society | System | Virtue | Virtue | War | Will | Society |

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people. It may be that our generation will have to repent not only for the diabolical actions and vitriolic words of the children of darkness, but also for the crippling fears and tragic apathy of the children of light.

Apathy | Character | Children | Darkness | Good | Light | People | Silence | Tragedy | Will | Words |