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 Shakespeare

Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore should I repent me; but once put out thy light, thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat that can thy light relume. Othello, scene ii

Mind | Old |

Edward Scribner Ames

We have overdeveloped the individualism that arose in a pioneer country. We are destined to become more co-operative, more collectivistic, and to find in this direction still greater opportunity for the individual, not so much restricted and defeated by competition but enlarged and enhanced by the support of a common will. It may be that the problem of material goods--of the necessary but yet external goods of food, clothing, shelter, and money-is about to be solved through new discoveries and developments, with the energies of men left freer than they have ever been to cultivate on higher levels the sharable goods of life, such as love and wisdom. These values grow with use and multiply by being freely shared.

Business | Church | Defiance | God | Isolation | Knowledge | Organic | Sense | Society | Society | Business | God | Old |

Edwin Way Teale

How vivid is the suffering of the few when the people are few and how the suffering of nameless millions in two world wars is blurred over by numbers.

Knowledge |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

Books | Knowledge | Need | Wealth |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Heart | Mind |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

And from this divergence it follows that the Self (purusha) is witness, solitary, neutral, spectator and non-agent.

Mind |

Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL

Without thinking that death will come, I am absorbed in plans for the future. After having done the many and futile activities of this life I will leave utterly empty-handed. What a blunder; as I will certainly need an understanding of the excellent Dharma (proper conduct). So why not practice now?

Dawn | Looks | Mind | Will |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Perception, inference and testimony are recognized as the threefold proof, since all other proofs are included in these. The establishment of all that is to be proven depends, verily, on the means of demonstration.

Knowledge |

Kautilya, aka Chanakya or Vishnu Gupta NULL

The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.

Knowledge | Man | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Wise |

Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL

Munificent Nature, endowed with attributes, accomplishes by manifold means the purpose of the attributeless and uncaring Self, with no gain for itself.

Knowledge | Method |

Eileen Garrett

There is a place for each individual in the world, but you must seek and find where your place is and where you fit in. If you are afraid to take the responsibility of bringing in the new, do not try to stop those souls who are willing to do it. Realize that those souls who have been trained and inspired to undertake this task will do so, for it is their work. Find your rightful place in the whole vast plan, and if you are not in the front line do not let it disturb you. Remember, all sorts of people are needed to make up the whole. Simply accept your specific work and do what you know you have to do wholeheartedly, and allow those souls who have been placed in the position of leadership and responsibility to go ahead. Give them your full backing and complete loyalty; they need it and appreciate it. Lift up your heart in deep love praise and gratitude for them, and always give of your very best.

Future | Language | Mind |

Eldridge Cleaver, fully Leroy Eldridge Cleaver

Ah, what sights and sounds and pain lie beneath that mist. And we had thought that our hard climb out of that cruel valley led to some cool, green and peaceful, sunlit place---but it's all jungle here, a wild and savage wilderness that's overrun with ruins. But put on your crown, my Queen, and we will build a New City on these ruins.

Impression | Memory | Mind | Spirit | Unhappiness | Will |

Egyptian Proverbs

At the time of a test, a person rises or falls.

Effort | Heaven | Hope | Knowledge |

Egyptian Proverbs

Maat, who links universal to terrestrial, the divine with the human is incomprehensible to the cerebral intelligence.

Knowledge |

Eileen Garrett

Isn't there a picture that belongs in the original frame? Life [one suspects she means spiritual life] cannot die. You can explode its dynamism [the physical body] but you cannot dissipate its energy. If you suffer where life suffered, the essence that once filled the frame will take from you something to dramatize and live again.

Eternal | Experience | Knowledge | Prediction |

Eleanor Holmes Norton

The first thing people have got to do is to stop believing there's going to be any action anytime soon, ... It's obviously a prime piece of land. It's what's on the land that makes development difficult.

Doubt | Mind | Torture |

Elif Safak

When you see a hand from afar, Kimya, can you do that there is only one school. But you dive into the water, you realize that there is more than a river. The river is hidden inside various currents and they all run in harmony, yet are completely separate from one another.

Belief | Books | Destroy | Force | God | Good | Insanity | Knowledge | Life | Life | Man | Need | People | Philosophy | Religion | Taste | Time | Words | God | Understand |

Elif Safak

Human beings tend to discredit the things he cannot understand for some reason.

Blame | Fear | God | Love | Means | Mind | Reflection | God |

Elihu Root

When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue not by wire pulling and demagoguery not by the arts of popularity not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.

Better | Character | Evil | Folly | Government | Ignorance | Indifference | Indolence | Knowledge | Law | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Nature | Responsibility | Suffering | Time | World | Wrong | Government |

Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen

Spezia offered Leopold almost nothing: his precocity devoured itself there, rejecting the steep sunny coast and nibbling blue edge of the sea that had drowned Shelley. His spirit became crustacean under douches of culture and mild philosophic chat from his Uncle Dee, who was cultured rather than erudite.

Mind |