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

Stewart B. Johnson

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.

Business | Character | Force | Life | Life | Work | Business |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Our unconscious existence is the real one and our conscious world a kind of illusion, an apparent reality constructed for a specific purpose like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it.

Character | Existence | Illusion | Purpose | Purpose | Reality | World |

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Our inward values and judgments are based on pleasure, not on any great, tremendous principles, but just on pleasure... The active principle of our life is pleasure.

Character | Life | Life | Pleasure | Principles |

Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphans - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Battle | Care | Character | Charity | Firmness | God | Malice | Nations | Peace | Right | Work | God |

Joshua L. Liebman, fully Joshua Loth Liebman

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension; when he does not torment himself with childish guilt feelings, but avoids tragic adult sins; when he postpones immediate pleasures for the sake of long-term values... Our generation must be inspired to search for that maturity which will manifest itself in the qualities of tenacity, dependability, co-operativeness and the inner drive to work and sacrifice for a nobler future of mankind.

Character | Feelings | Future | Guilt | Life | Life | Mankind | Qualities | Sacrifice | Search | Tenacity | Will | Work |

Albertus Magnus, known as Albert the Great and Albert of Cologne

Happy is the man who, by continually effacing all images and through introversion and the lifting up of his mind to God, at last forgets and leaves behind all such hindrances... If, therefore, thou desirest a safe stair and short path to arrive at the end of true bliss, then, with an intent mind, earnestly desire and aspire after continual cleanness of heart and purity of mind. Add to this a constant calm and tranquillity of the senses, and a recollecting of the affections of the heart, continually fixing them above. Work to simplify the heart, that being immovable and at peace from any invading vain phantasms... Thus continue, until thou becomest immutable and dost arrive at any vicissitude of space or time, reposing in that inward quiet and secret mansion of the deity.

Character | Desire | God | Happy | Heart | Man | Mind | Peace | Purity | Quiet | Safe | Space | Time | Tranquility | Work |

Walter Savage Landor

We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offense to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silence, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.

Business | Character | Diversity | Jealousy | Leisure | Offense | Opinion | Preference | Silence | Society | Will | Society | Business |

Walter G. MacPeek

Sometimes great life-changing values come to us in brief moments of contact with high-potential personalities.

Character | Life | Life |

Yechezkail Levenstein

A person is a success if he works on the trait of sincerely desiring other people’s success. It is easy to talk as if you wish someone success but inwardly hope he fails. In general you should know that without hard work and wisdom it is impossible to reach any virtue, and you will remain with your natural tendencies and behavior.

Behavior | Character | Hope | People | Success | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wisdom | Work |

James Russell Lowell

No man is born into the world, whose work is not born with him.

Character | Man | Work | World |

James Russell Lowell

No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself, who would not exchange the finest show for the poorest reality, who does not so love his work that he is not only glad to give himself for it, but finds rather a gain than a sacrifice in the surrender.

Character | Love | Man | Reality | Sacrifice | Surrender | Work |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

When a person is born, he finds the world in a certain organized fashion. As he grows up, he tries to adjust himself to the assumptions that are accepted in the world. He views each event that occurs with the same perspective as the other people of his generation. These perspectives originated in the past and have been handed down from parents to children. These assumptions are taken for granted to such an extent that most people react to the accepted perspective of the world as if they were laws of the universe that cannot be changed. They are accepted as reality and are not challenged. Only a small minority of people obtain the necessary wisdom to look at the world with complete objectivity. They take a critical look at teach and every thing and try to understand everything as it really is instead of accepting the general prevalent outlook. Those who try to investigate the origin of every perspective will perceive everything in a much different light than is commonly accepted.

Character | Children | Light | Objectivity | Parents | Past | People | Reality | Teach | Universe | Will | Wisdom | World | Understand |

Frederick Loomis, fully Sir Frederick Oscar Warren Loomis

Be yourself. Cultivate desirable qualities. Be alert. Look for opportunities to express yourself. Be positive. Determine your goal and the route to it. Be systematic. Take one step at a time. Be persistent. Hold to your course. Be a worker. Work your brain more than your body. Be a student. Know your job. Be fair. Treat the other man as you would be treated. Be temperate. Avoid excess in anything. Be confident. Have faith that cannot be weakened.

Body | Character | Excess | Faith | Man | Qualities | Time | Work |

Yechezkail Levenstein

The commandment to love the Almighty requires that we should be willing to give up our lives if necessary out of love for Him. If a person has internalized that in reality he is a soul and his body is merely an outer garment that he temporarily wears, he will find it relatively easy to fulfill the commandment of giving up his life is need be. He does not feel as if he is sacrificing himself for he always retains his soul. His body which he is sacrificing is not himself but only an outer garment. For such a person giving up his life is not the ultimate sacrifice since his body is not an integral part of his identity.

Body | Character | Giving | Life | Life | Love | Need | Reality | Sacrifice | Soul | Will |

Marya Mannes

Minds are cluttered from the age of six with the values of others - values which bear little relation to their own private capacities, needs and desires.

Age | Character | Little |