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

Dada Vaswani, born Jashan Pahalraj Vaswani

The past is a cancelled check. The future is a promissory note. The present is the only cash in hand. Use it wisely and well.

Future | Past | Present |

Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

The ego is goal-oriented. The ego is hankering for the future. It can hanker even for the other life, it can hanker for heaven, it can hanker for nirvana. It doesn't matter what it hankers for -- hankering is what it is, desiring is what it is, projecting into the future is what it is.

Ego | Future |

Jacques Monod

The future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations, and there are two absolute requisites: We must aim at a stable-state society [with limited population growth] and the destruction of nuclear stockpiles. … Otherwise I don't see how we can survive much later than 2050.

Absolute | Future | Mankind | Society | Society |

Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

When ambition enters, creativity disappears -- because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future -- and a creative person is always in the present.

Ambition | Creativity | Future | Love | Man | Writing | Ambition |

Jacques Cousteau, formally Hacques-Yves Cousteau, known as 'le Commandant Cousteau' or 'Captain Cousteau'

The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.

Destiny | Future | Question | Survival |

James Russell Lowell

The future works out great men's destinies; the present is enough for common souls, who, never looking forward, are indeed mere clay wherein the footprints of their age are petrified forever.

Age | Enough | Future | Present |

James Baldwin, fully James Arthur Baldwin

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

Challenge | Future | Time | Will | Work |

Jean Rostand

When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won't one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.

Error | Future | Intuition | Science |

James Joyce

I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.

Future |

Jim Morrison

The future is uncertain but the end is always near.

Future |

Anne Sullivan, fully Johanna "Anne" Mansfield Macy

The immediate future is going to be tragic for all of us unless we find a way of making the vast educational resources of this country serve the true purpose of education, truth and justice.

Future | Purpose | Purpose | Truth |

Joanna Macy, fully Joanna Rogers Macy

Everything we do impinges on all beings. The way you are with your child is a political act, and the products you buy and your efforts to recycle are part of it too. So is meditation–just trying to stay aware is a task of tremendous importance. We are trying to be present to ourselves and each other) in a way that can save our planet. Saving life on this planet includes developing a strong, caring connection with future generations; for, in the Dharma of co-arising, we are here to sustain one another over great distances of space and time.

Future | Life | Life | Present | Space | Child |

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

If there were no future life, our souls would not thirst for it.

Future |

Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter

The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow’s veil, the future, the virgin’s.

Future | Past |

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite.

Burial | Future | Man | Will | Happiness |

John Buchan, Baron Tweedsmuir

As we age, the mystery of Time more and more dominates the mind. We live less in the present, which no longer has the solidity that it had in youth; less in the future, for the future every day narrows its span. The abiding things lie in the past.

Day | Future | Mystery | Time |

John Adams

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.

Body | Duty | Education | Future | Good | History | Honesty | Humanity | Industry | Literature | People | Principles | Public | Punctuality | Rights |

John Graham

A successful future for America depends on the meaning we attach to being citizens of the same republic--a meaning shattered every time the left questions the intelligence of their opponents and the right questions the patriotism of those who don’t share their views. That success also will be measured by the depth of our commitment to each other—a commitment that begins in our neighborhoods and PTAs and town councils and swells upward from there. Our success rest on the shape and power of our vision--how can we pursue “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” when the nation is a battleground of uncompromising ideas and ideologies? We need to change what’s in our minds but above all we need to change what’s in our hearts.

Change | Commitment | Future | Ideas | Intelligence | Liberty | Meaning | Need | Patriotism | Power | Rest | Right | Success | Time | Will |