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

Stephen Mitchell

When we consider absolute reality, there is no end, no beginning; emptiness is the same as fulfillness, just seen from a different perspective. We say that this coffee cup is empty; but empty means filled with space, filled with possibilities, ready for anything: milk, water, tea wine. Every moment of time, every point in space, is completely empty, completely open for what wants to come. That is why it can be filled.

Absolute | Beginning | Means | Reality | Space | Time | Wants | Wisdom |

Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

Individual | Means | Wants | Wisdom | Leader |

Thomas Paine

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

Calamity | Evil | Government | Means | Society | Wisdom | Calamity |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling - that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind.

Means | Mind | Peace | Rest | Wisdom |

Donald Culross Peattie

Life is an adventure in experience, and when you are no longer greedy for the last drop of it, it means no more than that you have set your face... to the day when you shall depart.

Adventure | Day | Experience | Life | Life | Means | Wisdom |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

It would be correct to say that the world was not made in time, but that time was formed by means of the world, for it was heaven's movement that was the index of the nature of time.

Heaven | Means | Nature | Time | Wisdom | World |

Paramananda, fully Swami Paramananda, born Suresh Chandra Guha-Thakurta NULL

Have faith in your immortal nature. Know that you are Spirit. Those who think they are limited and mortal, that they are born and that they die, are superstitious. Anything that is weakening, anything that is degenerating, anything that tells us that we are limited human beings is a terrible superstition. By all the means in our power we must overcome it. Let us tear aside this veil of superstition, recognize our true nature, and know that we are eternal, imperishable and immortal.

Eternal | Faith | Means | Mortal | Nature | Power | Spirit | Superstition | Wisdom | Think |

Anna Delaney Peale

If a door slams shut it means that God is pointing to an open door further on down.

God | Means | Wisdom | God |

William Lyon Phelps

Every person in the world may not become a personage. But every person may become a personality. The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Interesting thoughts can live only in cultivated minds. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays at the theater, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world; and they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

Books | Cause | Conversation | Good | Happy | Leisure | Love | Means | Music | People | Personality | Wisdom | World | Happiness | Think |

George Herbert Palmer

That’s what education means - to be able to do what you’ve never done before.

Education | Means | Wisdom |

Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

Geometry gives us the sense of equality produced by proportion. It also heals by means of fine music all that is harsh and inharmonious or discordant in the soul, under the influence of rhythm, meter and melody.

Equality | Influence | Means | Melody | Music | Sense | Soul | Wisdom |

Joseph Parker

The whole sum and substance of human history may be reduced to this maxim: that when man departs from the divine means of reaching the divine end, he suffers harm and loss.

Harm | History | Man | Means | Wisdom |

Donald Culross Peattie

Whatever life is (and nobody can define it) it is something forever changing shape, fleeting, escaping us into death. Life is indeed the only thing that can die, and it begins to die as soon as it is born, and never ceases dying. Each of us is constantly experiencing cellular death. For the renewal of our tissues means a corresponding death of them, so that death and rebirth become, biologically, right and left hand of the same thing. All growing is at the same time a dying away from that which lived yesterday.

Death | Life | Life | Means | Right | Time | Wisdom |

William Paley, Archdeacon of Saragossa

If the cause and end of war be justifiable, all the means that appear necessary to the end are justifiable also.

Cause | Means | War | Wisdom |

Friedrich Nietzsche, fully Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

One finds in art the means whereby he may rejoice in his nature, another the means whereby he may temporarily overcome and escape from his nature. In accordance with these two needs, there are two kinds of art and artist.

Art | Means | Nature | Wisdom | Art |

Austin O'Malley

Education should be a conscious, methodical application of the best means in the wisdom of the ages to the end that youth may know how to live completely.

Education | Means | Wisdom | Youth | Youth |

Johann Pestalozzi, fully Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Thinking leads man to knowledge. He may see and hear, and read and learn whatever he pleases, and as much as he pleases; he will never know anything of it, except that which he has thought over, that which by thinking he has made the property of his own mind. Is it then saying too much if I say that man, by thinking only, becomes truly man? Take away thought from man's life, and what remains?

Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Mind | Property | Thinking | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Learn | Thought |

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

What is property? Property is theft.

Property | Wisdom |

Reyad NULL

Man was born to be tested on this earth... If I am to live twenty more years, I will try to live enjoying each moment, instead of killing myself to get more... to be a man means to be responsible, to know when it is time to speak, to know what has to be said, to know when one must stay silent.

Earth | Man | Means | Time | Will | Wisdom |