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

William James

Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness quite disregarded... They forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality.

Consciousness | Reality | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all ego-hood. Out of these all-uniting depths arises the dream, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral... Death is psychologically as important as birth... Shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

Abnormal | Birth | Consciousness | Darkness | Death | Dreams | Ego | Eternal | Important | Life | Life | Man | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Wisdom |

Margaret Jenkins

Every pupil you have carries in his mind or heart or conscience a bit of you. Your influence, your example, your ideas and values keep marching on - how far into the future and into what realms of our spacious universe you will never know.

Conscience | Example | Future | Heart | Ideas | Influence | Mind | Universe | Will | Wisdom |

Robinson Jeffers, fully John Robinson Jeffers

Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts... It is a beautiful work of nature, like an eagle or a high sunrise.

Nature | Poetry | Wisdom | Work |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Seldom, or perhaps never, does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly and without crises; there is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Consciousness | Individual | Marriage | Pain | Relationship | Wisdom |

John F. Kennedy, fully John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of men's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his experience. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist... faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an offensive state.

Arrogance | Art | Diversity | Experience | Individual | Judgment | Man | Men | Mind | Poetry | Power | Reality | Sensibility | Society | Vision | Wisdom | Society | Art | Truths |

William James

The world of our consciousness consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner ‘state’ in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous - the cosmic times and spaces, for example - whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of the mind. Yet the cosmic objects, so far as the experience yields them, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point outwardly, while the inner state is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one.

Consciousness | Example | Existence | Experience | Mind | Reality | Thinking | Time | Wisdom | World | Think |

William James

I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness and of their souls’ resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream.

Consciousness | Doubt | Habit | Life | Life | Little | Man | People | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

Psychic reality exists in its original oneness, and awaits man's advance to a level of consciousness where he no longer believes in the one part and denies the other, but recognizes both as constituent elements of one psyche.

Consciousness | Man | Oneness | Reality | Wisdom |

Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung

We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.

Age | Consciousness | Dreams | God | Wisdom | God |

R. D. Laing, fully Ronald David Laing

When the Copernican Revolution superseded the ancient Polemic world view, the earth took its rightful place as one planet among many. Man was no longer the center of the universe and though his self-image was deflated, he grew in maturity. In the same way, we must take our rightful place in nature - not as its self-centered and profligate "master" with the divine right of kings to exploit and despoil, but as one species living in harmony with the whole.

Earth | Exploit | Harmony | Man | Nature | Revolution | Right | Self | Universe | Wisdom | World |

James Alfred Langford

No matter what his rank or position may be, the lover of books is the richest and the happiest of children of men.

Books | Children | Men | Position | Rank | Wisdom |

Walter Savage Landor

Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd.

Absurd | Universe | Wisdom |