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

Jeremy Taylor

Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils bear patiently and sweetly; for only this day is ours; we are dead to yesterday, and not born to-morrow.

Blessings | Day | God | Wisdom | God |

Charles P. Steinmetz, fully Charles Proteus Steinmetz, born Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz

Spiritual power is a force which history clearly teaches has been the greatest force in the development of men... Some day people will learn that material things do not bring happiness, and are of little use in making people creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world will turn their laboratories over to the study of spiritual forces which have hardly been scratched.

Day | Force | History | Little | Men | People | Power | Study | Will | Wisdom | World | Learn |

Samuel Smiles

We each day dig our graves with our teeth.

Day | Wisdom |

David Spangler

Ultimately, our purpose is to be so alive, compassionate and creative in our own lives that the whole universe quivers with excitement and enthusiasm and brings forth a new spirit, a new possibility, in our midst. Our purpose is to be both the womb and the midwife for the birthing into our world of a holy spirit filled with new potentials for life and creativity. We exist in order to quicken the creativity and spirit of our world so that new worlds, new wonders, new blessings may emerge... To truly appreciate the meaning of life, we must be prepared to let the meanings we have known stand in the presence of new insights and be transformed. We have no final answers, only the questions that lead to further discoveries, creativity and emergence. We are here that life may discover, know and express itself more abundantly for the blessing and fulfillment of all creation - past, present and potential.

Blessings | Creativity | Enthusiasm | Excitement | Fulfillment | Life | Life | Meaning | Order | Past | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Universe | Wisdom | World |

William Graham Sumner

If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. doctrines are the most fearful tyrants to which men ever are subject, because doctrines get inside of a man’s own reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.

Doctrine | Fighting | Man | Men | Reason | War | Wisdom |

E. B. White, fully Elwyn Brooks White

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for Nature to follow. Now we just set the clock an hour ahead and change the oil in the crankcase.

Change | Day | Example | Nature | Time | Wisdom |

Julian Baggini

Whatever it is that we value in life – relationships, creativity, learning, aesthetic experience, food, sex, travel – the call to seize the day is the call to appreciate these things while we can and not to put them off indefinitely. Some things require work and time, and often the best choice is not to do today everything you want to do before you die. The true spirit of carpe diem is not to panic and try to do everything now, but to make sure every day counts. The wisdom of carpe diem is that time is short, this is the only life we have and we should not squander it.

Aesthetic | Choice | Creativity | Day | Experience | Learning | Life | Life | Panic | Spirit | Time | Wisdom | Work | Value |

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali

The meaning of death is not the annihilation of the spirit, but its separation from the body, and that the resurrection and day of assembly do not mean a return to a new existence after annihilation, but the bestowal of a new form or frame to the spirit.

Body | Day | Death | Existence | Meaning | Spirit |

Temple Bailey, born Irene Temple Bailey

The mother said, “This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage. Today I have given them strength... This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God... I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know that the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them.” And the children said, “You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.”

Beginning | Better | Children | Courage | Day | Fortitude | God | Journey | Mother | Strength | Will |

Yoshida Shoin Zenshu

The mind of the superior man is like Heaven. When it is resentful or angry, it thunders forth its indignation. But once having loosed its feelings, it is like a sunny day with a clear sky... Such is the beauty of true manliness.

Beauty | Day | Feelings | Heaven | Indignation | Man | Manliness | Mind | Wisdom | Beauty |

Saul Bellow

There’s a scheme of evasion that has gotten into everybody. It’s as though people were to say: “I get home dog tired after a terrible day out in that jungle, and then I don’t want to think about it. Enough! I want to be brainwashed. I’m going to have my dinner and drink some beer, and I’m going to sit watching TV until I pass out – because that’s how I feel.” That means people are not putting up a struggle for the human part of themselves.

Day | Enough | Evasion | Means | People | Struggle | Think |

Jacob Bobart the Younger

Think that day lost whose descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.

Action | Day |

John F. Wright

True religion is the life we live, not the creed we profess, and some day will be recognized by quality and quantity, and not by brand.

Creed | Day | Life | Life | Religion | Will | Wisdom |

Hans Albrecht Bethe

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.

Fighting | History | Ideals | War | Will |

Edward Young

The more we live, more brief appear our life’s succeeding stages; a day to childhood seems a year, and years like passing ages.

Childhood | Day | Life | Life | Wisdom |

Yun-men NULL

Every day is a good day.

Day | Good | Wisdom |

Julian Baggini

We need to confine our hopes to what we can achieve in our lifetime, always mindful of the fact that the span of life is not guaranteed. The traditional saying `Live each day as thought it were your last’ should thus be adapted to `Live each day as if it could be your last, but could equally be just one more in your short life.’

Day | Life | Life | Need | Thought | Thought |