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

Aldous Leonard Huxley

Our current neglect of Law is yet another of the many indications that twentieth-century educators have ceased to be concerned with questions of ultimate truth or meaning and (apart from mere vocational training) are interested solely in the dissemination of a rootless and irrelevant culture, and the fostering of the solemn foolery of scholarship for scholarship’s sake.

Character | Culture | Law | Meaning | Neglect | Training | Truth |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

The psyche is not of today. Its ancestry goes back many millions of years. Individual consciousness is only the flower and fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial root beneath the earth.

Ancestry | Character | Consciousness | Earth | Individual | Wisdom |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even reach it, but no one gets further.

Character | Faith | Man | Passion |

Marwa Kisare, fully Zedekia Marwa Kisare

God is both the purpose (the why) and manner (the how) of my existence.

Character | Existence | God | Purpose | Purpose |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Character | Darkness | Existence | Light | Purpose | Purpose |

Donald Anderson Laird

Friendliness is contagious. The trouble is, many of us wait to catch it from someone else, when we might better be giving them a chance to catch it from us.

Better | Chance | Character | Giving | Trouble |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth that like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard... Even in time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. If we had no other purpose in life, it would be good enough to simply take care of them and goose them once in a while.

Care | Character | Enough | Focus | God | Good | Greed | Life | Life | People | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Truth |

Ya’akov Dov "Katzele" Katz

We are constantly repeating messages in our minds. If they are negative: “I’m a failure,” “The world is an awful place,” “Nothing ever goes right,” we make our lives miserable. We have the ability to consciously make an effort to repeat to our selves positive messages: “I have the ability to keep improving,” “The world contains many wonderful opportunities,” “Everything that happens to me can be used for growth”... Little by little they will have a positive effect on your personality and emotions.

Ability | Character | Effort | Emotions | Failure | Growth | Little | Nothing | Personality | Right | Will | World |

Garrison Keillor, fully Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor

Your success and happiness lie in you. External conditions are the accidents of life. The great enduring realities are love and service. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy and your joy in you shall form an invincible host against difficulty.

Character | Difficulty | Happy | Intelligence | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Purpose | Purpose | Service | Success | Happiness |

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 |

Harold Lewis, fully Harold "Hal" Warren Lewis

Fear and risk are different creatures. What some of us fear most - poison in our drinking water, radiation in our air, pesticides on our food - pose hardly any real risk, while some we fear least - driving, drinking and smoking - kill many hundreds of thousands each year.

Character | Fear | Kill | Risk |

John Locke

Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind upon the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.

Anger | Character | Mind | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Revenge |

George Henry Lewes

Among the many strong servilities mistaken for piety, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world and vilifying human nature.

Character | God | Human nature | Nature | Piety | World | God |

Stephen MacKenna

To have no set purpose in one's life is the harlotry of the will.

Character | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Will | Wisdom |

Yeruchem Levovitz, aka The Mashgiach

Peace of mind is essential for obtaining many virtues. Its absence leads to all types of shortcomings. When you have peace of mind, you can use your mind constructively. Lack of peace of mind breeds anger and resentment. The quality of one’s prayers and blessings is dependent on the mastery of one’s thoughts... Only when a person has peace of mind can he really feel love for humanity. Lack of peace of mind leads to animosity towards others. Peace of mind leads to love.

Absence | Anger | Blessings | Character | Humanity | Love | Mind | Peace | Resentment |

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Perseverance can lend the appearance of dignity and grandeur to many actions, just as silence in company affords wisdom and apparent intelligence to a stupid person.

Appearance | Character | Dignity | Intelligence | Perseverance | Silence | Wisdom |

Nicolas Malebranche

We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.

Character | Think |