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

Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland

Life was intended to be so adjusted that the body should be the servant of the soul, and always subordinate to the soul.

Body |

Julia Cameron

We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. writing is sensual, experiential, grounding. we should write because writing is good for the soul. we should write because writing yields us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in.

Body | Good | Passion | World | Writing |

Julian Baggini

I find it hard to imagine why God would want creatures like us solely to serve him: it's not as though he's in need of domestic help or anything like that. It also seems unnervingly close in attitude to the people who for many centuries thought it was simply their role in life to work for the aristocracy and the upper classes. To take pride in one's lowly position and to see that as confirming meaning on one's life seems to me indicative of what Nietzsche called 'slave mortality': sanctifying what is in reality an unfortunate position so as to make that place seem much more desirable than it really is.

God | Life | Life | Meaning | Need | People | Position | Pride | Reality | Thought | Work | God | Thought |

Karl Marx

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

History | Position | Progress | Ugly |

Karl Mannheim, alternatively Mannheim Károly

A modern theory of knowledge which takes account of the relational as distinct from the merely relative character of all historical knowledge must start with the assumption that there are spheres of thought in which it is impossible to conceive of absolute truth existing independently of the values and position of the subject and unrelated to the social context.

Absolute | Character | Knowledge | Position | Thought | Truth | Thought |

Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

Body | Ideas | Mind | Unity | Will | Learn |

Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn

Without self-discovery, a person may still have self confidence, but it is a self confidence built on ignorance and it melts in the face of heavy burdens. Self discovery is the end product of a great challenge mastered, when the mind commands the body to do the seemingly impossible, when courage and strength are summoned to extraordinary limits for the sake of something outside the self--a principle, an onerous task, another human life.

Body | Challenge | Confidence | Courage | Discovery | Ignorance | Mind | Self | Strength | Discovery |

Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you. While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth. If someone asks the inner meaning of this: "Inside the treasury of dharma eye a single grain of dust.

Body | Lying | Meaning |

Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL

The soul is never born nor dies at any time. Soul has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. Soul is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. Soul is not slain when the body is slain.

Body | Soul | Will |

Krishna, also Kreeshna, Krsna, Lord Krishna NULL

As long as you have attachment to the body and attachment to objects, fear and suffering will be with you. Therefore, Krishna told Arjuna to develop his discrimination and rid himself of body consciousness. He told him that once he was free of body consciousness he would be able to develop integral vision. Embodiments of Love, Mankind today has three types of vision. The first is body oriented vision, which is totally superficial. When you have this kind of vision you see only the external appearance of others, such as the clothes and the ornaments they wear, their facial features, their body characteristics, their peculiarities of speech, etc. This type of vision is oriented only towards the phenomenal world. The second kind of vision is insightful vision.

Appearance | Body | Consciousness | Fear | Mankind | Suffering | Vision | Will |

Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

Handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.

Body |

Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL

You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay.

Body | Light | Mind | Practice | Will | Words | Following | Learn |

Konrad Adenauer, fully Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer

All parts of the human body get tired eventually - except the tongue.

Body |

Ken Wilber, fully Kenneth Earl Wilber II

Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity - a total embrace of the entire Kosmos - a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. It is at least plausible. And tell me: is that story, sung by mystics and sages the world over, any crazier than the scientific materialism story, which is that the entire sequence is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Listen very carefully: just which of those two stories actually sounds totally insane?

Body | Consciousness | Materialism | Mind | Soul | Sound | Spirit | World |

Kwame Nkrumah

No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an INDEPENDENT course of economic development, and many of us who have tried to do this have been almost ruined or have had to return to the fold of the former colonial rulers. This position will not change unless we have unified POLICY working at the CONTINENTAL LEVEL. The first step towards our cohesive economy would be a unified monetary zone, with, initially, an agreed common parity for our currencies...When we find that the arrangement of a fixed common parity is working successfully, there would seem to be NO reason for not instituting one common currency and a single bank of issue.

Chance | Change | Policy | Position | Reason | Will |

Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

One man does not assert the truth which he knows, because he feels himself bound to the people with whom he is engaged; another, because the truth might deprive him of the profitable position by which he maintains his family; a third, because he desires to attain reputation and authority, and then use them in the service of mankind; a fourth, because he does not wish to destroy old sacred traditions; a fifth, because he has no desire to offend people; a sixth, because the expression of the truth would arouse persecution, and disturb the excellent social activity to which he has devoted himself. One serves as emperor, king, minister, government functionary, or soldier, and assures himself and others that the deviation from truth indispensable to his condition is redeemed by the good he does. Another, who fulfills the duties of a spiritual pastor, does not in the depths of his soul believe all he teaches, but permits the deviation from truth in view of the good he does. A third instructs men by means of literature, and notwithstanding the silence he must observe with regard to the whole truth, in order not to stir up the government and society against himself, has no doubt as to the good he does. A fourth struggles resolutely with the existing order as revolutionist or anarchist, and is quite assured that the aims he pursues are so beneficial that the neglect of the truth, or even of the falsehood, by silence, indispensable to the success of his activity, does not destroy the utility of his work. In order that the conditions of a life contrary to the consciousness of humanity should change and be replaced by one which is in accord with it, the outworn public opinion must be superseded by a new and living one. And in order that the old outworn opinion should yield its place to the new living one, all who are conscious of the new requirements of existence should openly express them. And yet all those who are conscious of these new requirements, one in the name of one thing, and one in the name of another, not only pass them over in silence, but both by word and deed attest their exact opposites.

Aims | Change | Consciousness | Desire | Destroy | Deviation | Doubt | Existence | Good | Government | Humanity | Indispensable | Life | Life | Man | Means | Men | Neglect | Opinion | Order | People | Position | Public | Regard | Reputation | Sacred | Service | Silence | Society | Soul | Success | Truth | Society | Government | Old |

Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

Nurturing life does not aim at preserving the body but at nourishing the spirit, allowing it to live forever.

Body | Life | Life |

Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi

Consider the death of the body in terms of God and His law. Your life, the life within you, encompasses everything within itself -- not only those whom you have lost but everything -- it includes God within itself. And if there is a God in your soul, then your soul is full, and there is no loss. And if there is a God, then there is love towards Him and towards people, towards those unfortunates who are in need of love. If you believe that everything that has happened to us in our life has been for our own good, then that which happens to us in our death is also for our own good.

Body | Death | God | Life | Life | Love | Need | Soul | God |

Les Brown

If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness.

Comfort | Position |

Lord Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

The one and only formative power given to man Is thought. By his thinking he not only makes character, but body and affairs, for as he thinketh within himself, so is he. Prejudice is a mist, which in our journey through the world often dims the brightest and obscures the best of all the good and glorious objects that meet us on our way.

Body | Good | Journey | Man | Power | Prejudice | Thinking | World |