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

Robert Collier

Visualize this thing that you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print and begin to build.

Wisdom |

Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He command us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.

Discipline | Faith | God | Lesson | Love | Trust | Will | Wisdom | Wise | World | Trial | God |

Anne Conway

In every visible Creature there is a Body and a Spirit... or, more Active and more Passive Principle, which may fitly be termed Male and Female, by reason of that Analogy a Husband hath with his Wife. For as the ordinary Generation of Men requires a Conjunction and Co-operation of Male and Female; so also all Generations and Productions whatsoever they be, require an Union, and conformable Operation of those Two Principles, to wit, Spirit and Body; but the Spirit is an Eye or Light beholding its own proper Image, and the Body is a Tenebrosity or Darkness receiving that Image, when the Spirit looks thereinto, as when one sees himself in a Looking-Glass; for certainly he cannot so behold himself in the Transparent Air, nor in any Diaphanous Body, because the reflexion of an Image requires a certain opacity or darkness, which we call a Body: Yet to be a Body is not an Essential property of any Thing; as neither is it a Property of any Thing to be dark; for nothing is so dark that nothing else, neither differs any thing from a Spirit, but in that it is more dark; therefore by how much the thicker and grosser it is become, so much the more remote it is from the degree of Spirit, so that this distinction is only modal and gradual, not essential or substantial.

Body | Darkness | Distinction | Husband | Light | Looks | Men | Nothing | Principles | Property | Reason | Spirit | Wife | Wisdom | Wit |

William Cobbett

Poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food an raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. The shame of poverty - the shame of being though poor - it is a great and fatal weakness, though arising in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves.

Poverty | Shame | Weakness | Wisdom |

Robert Collier

People blame their environment. There is one thing to blame - and only one -- themselves.

Blame | People | Wisdom |

Anne Conway

(Mathematical Division of Things, is never made in Minima; but Things may be Physically divided into their least parts; as when Concrete Matter is so far divided that it departs into Physical Monades, as it was in the first State of its Materiality...) Moreover the consideration of this Infinite Divisibility of every thing, into parts always less, is no unnecessary or unprofitable Theory, but a thing of great moment; viz. that thereby may be understood the Reasons and Causes of Things; and how all Creatures from the highest to the lowest are inseparably united with one another, by means of Subtiler Parts interceding or coming in between, which are the Emanations of one Creature into another, by which also they act one upon another at the greatest distance; and this is the Foundation of all Sympathy and Antipathy which happens in Creatures: And if these things be well understood of any one, he may easily see into the most secret and hidden Causes of Things, which ignorant Men call occult Qualities.

Consideration | Means | Men | Qualities | Sympathy | Wisdom |

Robert Collier

Your belief that you can do the thing gives your thought forces their power.

Belief | Power | Thought | Wisdom | Thought |

G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. but you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Change | Conservatism | Wisdom |

Adam Clarke

It is strictly and philosophically true in Nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent ore the cause of any event; but they signify merely men’s ignorance of the real and immediate cause.

Accident | Cause | Chance | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Reason | Wisdom | Words |

Robert Collier

The great thing is the start - to see an opportunity for service, and to start doing it, even though in the beginning you serve but a single customer - and him for nothing.

Beginning | Nothing | Opportunity | Service | Wisdom |

John Dewey

Since changes are going on any way, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires. Conditions and events are neither to be fled from nor passively acquiesced in; they are to be utilized and directed.

Enough | Events | Will | Wisdom | Learn |

Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow

There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court.

Justice | Wisdom |

Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, aka Baron Pierre de Coubertin

The most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

Important | Life | Life | Struggle | Wisdom |

Karl Deutsch, fully Karl Wolfgang Deutsch

The single greatest power in the world today is the power to change... The most recklessly irresponsible thing we could do in the future would be to go on exactly as we have in the past ten or twenty years. I can imagine no more dangerous policy than the conservatism that exists today.

Change | Conservatism | Future | Past | Policy | Power | Wisdom | World |

Isaac D'Israeli

The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places; and men of genius, in their walks at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.

Art | Folly | Genius | Meditation | Men | Mind | Solitude | Wisdom | Wise | Art |

Tyron Edwards

True conservatism is substantial progress; it holds fast what is true and good in order to advance in both. To cast away the old is not of necessity to attain the new. To reject anything that is valuable, lessens the power of gaining more. That a thing is new does not of course commend; that it is old does not discredit. The test question is, "Is it true or good?"

Conservatism | Good | Necessity | Order | Power | Progress | Question | Wisdom | Old |

Thomas Dreier

One thing scientists have discovered is that often-appreciated children become more intelligent than often-blamed ones. If some of your employees are a bit dumb, perhaps your treatment of them is to blame. There is a creative element in appreciation.

Appreciation | Blame | Children | Wisdom |

Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder, and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed... To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men.

Art | Awe | Beauty | Experience | Good | Knowledge | Men | Science | Sense | Wisdom | Wonder | Art | Beauty |