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

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

This spectacle of old age would be unendurable if we did not know that our psyche reaches into a region held captive neither by change in time nor by limitation of place. In that form of being our birth is a death and our death is a birth. The scales of the whole hang balanced.

Age | Birth | Change | Character | Death | Old age | Time | Wisdom | Old |

W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy

There is an aliveness in people who are living life and not merely observing or intellectualizing it... During the time of catastrophic change, each individual has the opportunity to feel fully alive and resource-filled-awake far beyond the daily soporific states of consciousness in which most of us reside. Living on an edge heightens the human awareness. It does not dull it.

Aliveness | Awareness | Change | Character | Consciousness | Individual | Life | Life | Opportunity | People | Time |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Personality is the supreme realization of the innate individuality of a particular living being. Personality is an act of the greatest courage in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, and the most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom of personal decision.

Absolute | Character | Courage | Decision | Existence | Freedom | Individual | Individuality | Life | Life | Personality |

John Knox

Those who have arrived at any very eminent degree of excellence in the practice of an art or profession have commonly been actuated by a species of enthusiasm in their pursuit of it. They have kept one object in view amidst all the vicissitudes of time and fortune.

Art | Character | Enthusiasm | Excellence | Fortune | Object | Practice | Time | Excellence | Vicissitudes | Art |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

In every adult there lurks a child - an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the human personality which wants to develop and become whole.

Attention | Care | Character | Education | Eternal | Personality | Wants | Child |

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 |

Søren Kierkegaard, fully Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

It requires moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice.

Character | Courage |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.

Character | Little | Wants |

Gaius Lucilius

Man is loved mainly because of two virtue: courage first, loyalty second.

Character | Courage | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Virtue | Virtue |

Jacques Maritain

A coward flees backward, away from new things. A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things.

Character | Courage | Man |

Chief Luther Standing Bear

Praise, flattery, exaggerated manners, and fine, high-sounding words were no part of Lakota politeness. Excessive manners were put down as insincere, and the constant talker was considered rude and thoughtless. Conversation was never begun at once, or in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation.

Beginning | Character | Conversation | Flattery | Giving | Important | Manners | Praise | Question | Thought | Time | Words | Thought |

Johann Kaspar Lavater

How few are our real wants! How easy it is to satisfy them! Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable... He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.

Character | Little | Wants |

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

You will be able to overcome desires without excessive difficulty when you become aware of their illusory nature. The pleasure of eating, for example, is really of very short duration. You feel the pleasure for only the short amount of time the food is in your mouth. As soon as you have swallowed the food, it is already forgotten... All physical pleasures are similar. Give the matter sufficient thought and you will realize that even the illusory good lasts only a short time. On the other hand, the negative consequences of physical pleasures can be severe and long lasting. A thinking person will definitely not want to place himself in a situation fraught with dangers for momentary pleasures. By habitually thinking about this truth, one will gradually be able to free himself from the prison of foolishly pursuing physical pleasures.

Character | Consequences | Difficulty | Example | Good | Nature | Pleasure | Prison | Thinking | Thought | Time | Truth | Will | Thought |