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

Tibetan Saying NULL

Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.

Mistake | Understanding | Wisdom |

Harry Wolfson, fully Harry Austryn Wolfson

We often mistake a desire of the body for a yearning of the soul.

Body | Desire | Mistake | Soul | Wisdom |

Annius NULL

I hold it to be of the highest importance for our interests that we should think rather of what we shall do than what we shall say. When we have decided upon that, it will be easy to accommodate our words to our acts.

Will | Words | Think |

William Wirt

In composing, think much more of your matter than your manner. Spirit, grace, and dignity of manner are of great importance, both to the speaker and writer; but of infinitely more importance are the weight and worth of matter.

Dignity | Grace | Spirit | Wisdom | Worth | Think |

Tennessee Williams, fully Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams

Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

Dignity | Life | Life | Question | Wisdom |

Joe Boot

To be human is to long for something more, something beyond us. Fulfillment, peace, and lasting happiness, for no apparent reason, seem to have evaded us. We believe that we are meant for happiness and made for joy. Pain and suffering are somehow a mistake that should not be part of life.

Fulfillment | Joy | Life | Life | Mistake | Pain | Peace | Reason | Suffering | Happiness |

Sandra Carey

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom – one helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

Knowledge | Life | Life | Mistake | Wisdom |

Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Destiny | Mistake | Time |

Tom Butler-Bowdon

Personal growth is often the result not of doing something new, but of seeing the same things in a new light. We all have mental maps of our world that we mistake for the actual territory. By clinging on to old maps we fail to see the true lie of the land and get lost.

Growth | Land | Light | Mistake | World | Old |

Donald G. Dawe

Modern secularity has offered another way of dealing with religious pluralism. As religious traditions lose their importance as means of self-understanding and community identification, their differences and mutual exclusiveness diminish in importance. Alienation from any particular religious faith tends to move the question of religious particularity into the realm of indifference, as life is determined by nonreligious values and institutions. Yet secularity has been no more successful in establishing human community than has the religious vision. The competing claims of nationalism, economic imperialism, and ideological triumphalism are also demonic forms of particularity that have not been able to establish a new universality in human community.

Alienation | Faith | Imperialism | Indifference | Life | Life | Means | Question | Self | Understanding | Vision |

John Dewey

Philosophy has the task and the opportunity of helping banish the concept that human destiny here and now is of slight importance in comparison with some supernatural destiny.

Destiny | Opportunity | Philosophy |

Emmet Fox

You grow in grace and understanding by solving your daily problems as they arise, by the Practice of the Presence of God, by a tolerant attitude toward others, by plan horse sense (which is Divine Wisdom in you), by sincere and honest dealing at all times, and by cultivating a true sense of humor – which always brings us nearer to God. The great point is that life is to be met and mastered. Outer conditions and appearances are simply of no importance in themselves except as they supply material for growth.

God | Grace | Growth | Humor | Life | Life | Plan | Practice | Problems | Sense | Understanding | Wisdom |

Goldie Hawn, fully Goldie Jeanne Hawn

We humans have the capacity to change the world with acts of love and kindness. Let’s start by teaching our children the importance of compassion.

Capacity | Change | Children | Compassion | Kindness | Love | World |

Aelred Graham

Where religion goes wrong it is because, in one form or another, men have made the mistake of trying to turn to God without turning away from self.

God | Men | Mistake | Religion | Self | Wrong | God |

Henry of Langenstein NULL

He who has enough to satisfy what he wants, and nevertheless ceaselessly labors to acquire riches, either in order to obtain a higher social position, or that subsequently he may have enough to live without labor, or that his sons may become men of wealth and importance - all such are incited by a damnable avarice, sensuality and pride.

Avarice | Enough | Labor | Men | Order | Position | Pride | Riches | Sensuality | Wants | Wealth |

Julian Huxley, fully Sir Julian Sorell Huxley

If the self-conception of novelty is the basic wonder of the universe, this eliciting of mind from the potentialities of world-stuff, and its intensification and increasing importance during evolution is the basic wonder of life.

Evolution | Life | Life | Mind | Novelty | Self | Universe | Wonder | World | Novelty |

William James

All new doctrine goes through three stages. It is attacked and declared absurd; then it is admitted as true and obvious but insignificant. Finally, its true importance is recognized and its adversaries claim the honor of having discovered it.

Absurd | Doctrine | Honor |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

So long as religion is only faith and outward form, and the religious function is not experienced in our own souls, nothing of any importance has happened.

Faith | Nothing | Religion |