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

Elizabeth Gilbert

The other day in prayer I said to God, Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch?.

Day | Mind | Need | Noise | Peace | Silence | Wants | Will |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I can read and eat and study. I can choose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether I will see them as curses or opportunities. I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

Body | Energy | Fate | Life | Life | Money | Fate |

Elizabeth Gilbert

We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we'll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there's no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don't at least marginally understand our home.

Ego | Fortune | Life | Life | Mind | Perfection | Right | Silence |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Zen masters say you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water.

Ego | Mind | Perfection | Silence |

Elizabeth Gilbert

To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.

Body | Decision | Little | People | Think |

Elizabeth Gilbert

We must take care of our families wherever we find them.

Love | Mind |

Elizabeth Gilbert

When I sit in my silence and look at my mind, it is only questions of longing and control that emerge to agitate me, and this agitation is what keeps me from evolving forward.

Body | Emotions | Learn |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Where did you get the idea you aren't allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You're a constituent--you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me--it will at least be taken into consideration.

Mind | Space | Old |

Elizabeth Janeway, born Elizabeth Ames Hall

I have a problem about being nearly sixty: I keep waking up in the morning and thinking I'm thirty-one.

Change | Mind | People |

Elizabeth Lesser

What will matter is the good we did, not the good we expected others to do.

Beginning | Body | Earth | Heart | Mind | Pain | Solitude | Spirit | Spirituality | Time |

Elizabeth Gilbert

When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It's safe. Let go.

Madness |

Elizabeth Gilbert

So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are correct, but in only one respect - only if they happen to be talking about Judaism. Christianity simply does not share that deep and consistent historical reverence toward matrimony. Lately it has, yes- but not originally. For the first thousand or so years of Christian history, the church regarded monogamous marriage as marginally less wicked that flat-out whoring but only very marginally.

Care | Death | Depression | Friend | Lending | Life | Life | Loneliness | Love | Mind | Mistake | Need | Nothing | Office | Reason | Reflection | Sadness | Security | Time | Waiting | Will | Writing |

Elizabeth Gilbert

Whenever I would feel such happiness my guilt alarm went off.

Body | Emotions | Learn |

Elizabeth Lesser

One of the problems of contemporary culture is that life moves at such a quick pace, we usually don't give ourselves time to feel and listen deeply. You may have to take deliberate action to nurture the soul. If you want to increase your soul's bank account, you may have to seek out the unfamiliar and do things that at first could feel uncomfortable. Give yourself time as you experiment. How will you know if you're on the right track? I like Rumi's counsel: 'When you do something from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.'

Age | Better | Cause | Earth | Enlightenment | Fame | Famous | Fortune | Good | Illusion | Kill | Labor | Light | Man | Mind | Money | People | Present | Problems | Shame | Terrorism | Work | Worry | Instruction | Understand |

Elizabeth Gilbert

There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in.

Body | Circumstances | Energy | Fate | Life | Life | Money | Regard | Will | Words | Fate |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.

Body | Nothing | World |

Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him.

Body | Leisure | Little | Music | Recreation | Sacrifice | Soul | Will | Worth |

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.

Body | Change | Error | Fear | Hell | Hope | Love | Sin |

Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL

What availeth wit when it fails the owner at greatest need?

Body | Family | Good | Health |

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Embrace truth as it is revealed to-day by human reason.

Body | Diet | Sound |