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

Brenda Ueland

We are always doing something, talking, reading, listening to the radio, planning what next. The mind is kept naggingly busy on some easy, unimportant external thing all day.

Day | Listening | Mind | Reading | Talking |

Charles Caleb Colton

Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either receives.

Attention | Body | Health | Mind | Suicide | Happiness |

Charles Caleb Colton

It is with diseases of the mind as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorders, and half cured when we do.

Body | Mind | Understand |

Charles Caleb Colton

Great men often obtain their ends by means beyond the grasp of vulgar intellect, and even by methods diametrically opposite to those which the multitude would pursue. But, to effect this, bespeaks as profound a knowledge of mind as that philosopher evinced of matter, who first produced ice by the agency of heat

Ends | Knowledge | Means | Men | Mind |

Blanche DeVries Bernard

The first and last lesson of Yoga is the attitude of mind and heart. The aim of Yoga is to unite mind, body, spirit. The reward of yoga practice is the conversion of physical energy into mind power. The practices give a definite sense of control and raise the levels of consciousness awareness. These practices are not to be done competitively, to exhibit to one's friends, to expand the ego. While each of us, according to our temperament, must find the best mental approach, it should be one of self-surrender. Quiet, but joyful. Concentrated. Never strained. Outer control of the body is a means of regulating the inner functioning.

Awareness | Body | Consciousness | Control | Ego | Energy | Heart | Lesson | Means | Mind | Power | Practice | Quiet | Reward | Self | Sense | Spirit | Surrender |

Charles Caleb Colton

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas! when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of misery.

Ambition | Mind | Reason |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstance and is not the creature of accidental impulse, and which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the Infinite Spirit, and in them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.

Impulse | Mind | Spirit | Circumstance |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

We should worship as though the Deity were present. If my mind is not engaged in my worship, it is as though I worshipped not.

Mind | Present | Worship |

Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze

Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.

Charity | Devotion | Man | Mind | Music | Nature |

Chinese Proverbs

A mind enlightened is heaven; a mind darkened is hell.

Heaven | Hell | Mind |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

Cultivate unity. You do your hearing, not with your ears, but with your mind; not with your mind, but with your very soul. But let the hearing stop with the ears. Let the working of the mind stop with itself. Then the soul will be a negative existence, passively responsive to externals. In such a negative existence, only Tao can abide. And the negative state is the fasting of the heart.

Existence | Heart | Mind | Soul | Unity | Will |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

He whose mind is really set on virtue will do no evil.

Evil | Mind | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

A noble mind can see a question from all sides without bias. Small minds are biased and see a question only form one side.

Mind | Question |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

The superior man does not set his mind either for or against anything; he will pursue whatever is right. The superior man thinks of virtue, the common man of comfort.

Comfort | Man | Mind | Right | Virtue | Virtue | Will |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

The general of a large army may be defeated, but you cannot defeat the determined mind of a peasant.

Defeat | Mind |

Charles Henry Parkhurst

Faith is mind at its best, its bravest, and its fiercest. Faith is thought become poetry, and absorbing into itself the soul’s great passions. Faith is intellect carried up to its transfigurement.

Faith | Mind | Poetry | Soul | Thought | Intellect | Thought |

Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

The superior man... does not set his mind either for or against anything; he will pursue whatever is right.

Man | Mind | Right | Will |