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

John Naisbitt

Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives… From an Industrial Society to an Information Society... From Forced Technology to High Tech/High Tech/High Touch... From a National Economy to a World Economy… From Short Term to Long Term… From Centralization to Decentralization… From Institutional Help to Self-Help… From Representative Democracy to Participatory Democracy… From Hierarchies to Networking… From North to South… From Either/Or to Multiple Option.

Democracy | Society | Technology | World | Society |

John Charles Polanyi

The respect for human rights, essential if we are to use technology wisely, is not something alien that must be grafted onto science. On the contrary, it is integral to science, as also to scholarship in general.

Respect | Technology | Respect |

Calvin Coolidge, fully John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.

The world has had enough of the curse of hatred and selfishness, of destruction and war. It has had enough of the wrongful use of material power. For the healing of the nations there must be good will and charity, confidence and peace. The time has come for a more practical use of moral power, and more reliance upon the principle that right makes its own might. Our authority among the nations must be represented by justice and mercy. It is necessary not only to have faith, but to make sacrifices for our faith. The spiritual forces of the world make all its final determinations. It is with these voices that America should speak. Whenever they declare a righteous purpose there need be no doubt that they will be heard. America has taken her place in the world as a Republic--free, independent, powerful. The best service that can be rendered to humanity is the assurance that this place will be maintained.

Authority | Confidence | Doubt | Enough | Good | Humanity | Justice | Nations | Need | Purpose | Purpose | Right | Service | Time | Will | World |

Jonas Salk

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man - if man is not enslaved by it.

Man | Science | Technology | Time |

Robinson Jeffers, fully John Robinson Jeffers

What is this thing called life? I believe that the earth and the stars too, and the whole glittering universe, and rocks on the mountains have life, only we do not call it so--I speak of the life... makes pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things grow from a chemical reaction? I think they were here already, I think the rocks and the earth and the other planets, and the stars and the galaxies have their various consciousness, all things are conscious; but the nerves of an animal, the nerves and brain bring it to focus; the nerves and brain are like a burning-glass to concentrate the heat and make it catch fire...but those and all things have their own awareness, as the cells of a man have; they feel and feed and influence each other, each unto all, like the cells of a man's body making one being, they make one being, one consciousness, one life, one God.

Body | Earth | Influence | Man | Pleasure | Think |

Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.

You have just got to constantly focus on innovation. And more competitors. You've got to constantly produce more for less through intellectual capital. Shun the incremental, and look for the quantum leap." Now the fundamentals have got to be more education. More information knowledge, faster speeds, more technology across the board.

Focus | Technology |

Lebanese Proverbs

Love overlooks defects; hatred magnifies them.

Maimonides, given name Moses ben Maimon or Moshe ben Maimon, known as "Rambam" NULL

All the evils that men cause to each other because of certain desires, or opinions or religious principles, are rooted in ignorance. [All hatred would come to an end] when the earth was flooded with the knowledge of God.

Cause | Earth | Knowledge | Men |

Marshall McLuhan, fully Herbert Marshall McLuhan

Our technology forces us to live mythically.

Technology |

Max Lucado

Anger. It's a peculiar yet predictable emotion. It begins as a drop of water. An irritant. A frustration. Nothing big, just an aggravation. Someone gets your parking place. Someone pulls in front of you on the freeway. A waitress is slow and you are in a hurry. The toast burns. Drops of water. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Yet, enough of these seemingly innocent drops of anger and before long you've got a bucket full of rage. Walking revenge. Blind bitterness. Unharnessed hatred. We trust no one and bare our teeth at anyone who gets near. We become walking time bombs that, given just the right tension and fear, could explode. Now, is that any way to live? What good has hatred ever brought? What hope has anger ever created? What problems have ever been resolved by revenge?

Anger | Enough | Good | Hope | Nothing | Problems | Right | Time | Trust |

Max Frisch

Primitive peoples tried to annul death by portraying the human body—we do it by finding substitutes for the human body. Technology instead of mysticism!

Death | Technology |

Max Weber, formally Maximilian Carl Emil Weber

Since Judaism made Christianity possible and gave it the character of a religion essentially free from magic, it rendered an important service from the point of view of economic history. For the dominance of magic outside the sphere in which Christianity has prevailed in one of the most serious obstructions to the rationalization of economic life. Magic involves a stereotyping of technology and economic relations. When attempts were made in China to inaugurate the building of railroads and factories a conflict with geomancy ensued ... Similar is the relation to capitalism of the castes in India. Every new technical process which an Indian employs signifies for him first of all that he leaves his caste and falls into another, necessarily lower ... An additional fact is that every caste makes every other caste impure. In consequence, workmen who dare not accept a vessel filled with water from each other's hands, cannot be employed together in the same factory room. Obviously, capitalism could not develop in an economic group thus bound hand and foot by magical means.

Capitalism | Character | Important | Magic | Religion | Service | Technology |

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe

There is much to learn from the technological revolution, as long as we understand its role in our lives and see it as a final step in our dramatic search for unity throughout the universe. After all, developments in science and technology have taught us to be more sensitive to the intangible and the sublime: the forces behind computers, telephones, television, and so on are all invisible, and yet we fully recognize their power and reach. Similarly, we must come to accept that the driving force behind the entire universe is intangible and sublime, and we must come to experience the transcendent and G-dly in every single thing — beginning, of course with ourselves.

Experience | Force | Power | Science | Search | Technology | Unity | Universe | Learn | Understand |

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe

The divine purpose of the present information revolution, for instance, which gives an individual unprecedented power and opportunity, is to allow us to share knowledge—spiritual knowledge—with each other, empowering and unifying individuals everywere. We need to use today’s interactive technology not just for business or leisure but to interlink as people – to create a welcome environment for the interaction of our souls, our hearts, our visions.

Business | Individual | Leisure | Need | People | Power | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Technology | Business |

Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell

Visionaries have the unique ability to dream of what's possible and then make it a reality. We are excited to watch these visionaries use technology to help students develop skills in collaboration, critical thinking and teamwork that they'll need to compete in the global economy.

Ability | Critical thinking | Global | Need | Technology | Thinking | Unique | Critical Thinking |

Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves.

Anger | Think |

Mikhail Naimy, also spelled Mikha'il Na'ima

You are the Tree of Life. Your roots are everywhere. Your boughs and leaves are everywhere. Your fruits are in every mouth. Whatever be the fruits upon that tree; whatever be its boughs and leaves; whatever be the roots; they are your fruits; they are your leaves and boughs; they are your roots. If you would have the tree bear sweet and fragrant fruit, if you would have it ever strong and green, see to the sap wherewith you feed the roots. Love is the Sap of Life. While Hatred is the pus of Death. But Love, like blood, must circulate unhindered in the veins. Repress the blood, and it becomes a menace and a plague. And what is Hate but Love repressed, or Love withheld, therefore becoming such a deadly poison both to the feeder and the fed; both to the hater and to that he hates. A yellow leaf upon your tree of life is but a Love-weaned leaf, Blame not the yellow leaf. A withered bough is but a Love-starved bough. Blame not the withered bough. A putrid fruit is but a Hatred-suckled fruit. Blame not the putrid fruit. But rather blame your blind and stingy heart that would dole out the sap of life to few and would deny it to many, thereby denying it to itself. No love is possible except by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.

Blame | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Self |

Moshe Chayim Luzzatto, also Moses Hayyim Luzzato, known by Hebrew acronym RaMCHal

The human heart in its perversity finds it hard to escape hatred and revenge.

Heart |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"Hate the sin and not the sinner" is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.

Enough | Precept | Sin |

Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lie not in hatred but in justice, if not in love.

Men | System |